Call: Multi-Brand platooning in real traffic conditions

1. Excellent Science
2. Industrial Leadership
3. Societal Challenges

Within this programme Horizon 2020 will provide funding for a resource efficient transport that respects the environment, aims at a better mobility, less congestion, more safety and security, supports a global leadership for the European transport industry and targets a socio-economic and behavioural research and forward looking activities for policy making.

Road transport automation holds the promise to help addressing many of the major challenges of today's transport system, such as user safety, energy efficiency, air quality and congestion, and at the same time, it represents a critical testing ground for the ability of the European automotive industry to preserve and consolidate its global leadership. Automation technology is rapidly evolving. Building on Cooperative InformationTechnology Services (ITS) and advances in ICT, such as connectivity, cloud computing and big data, as well as on satellite navigation technologies, automated road transport will enable driving strategies which are safe, sustainable and efficient on the level of the whole transport system. It will also facilitate the deployment of novel transport services and applications, and innovative infrastructure solutions. Current technology will evolve further towards semi-automation and eventually towards full automation in normal moving traffic. This evolution is very promising and may help to drastically reduce fatal traffic casualties to near zero, as more than 90% of road accidents are due to human errors.

The trend towards automation will however present numerous challenges in terms of technology and component development, human-machine interactions, testing of automatic vehicles in real life conditions, transition scenarios including impact on traffic volumes and transport management, legislative/regulatory implications, integration with infrastructure, and aspects of user behaviour and public acceptance.

Specific topics of the calls:

• ICT infrastructure to enable the transition towards road transport automation
• Automation pilots for passenger cars
• Multi-Brand platooning in real traffic conditions
• Safety and end-user acceptance aspects of road automation in the transition period
• Full-scale demonstration of urban road transport automation
• Road Infrastructure to support the transition to automation and the coexistence of conventional and automated vehicles on the same network
• Coordination of activities in support of road automation

Multi-Brand platooning (platooning of heavy duty vehicles of different brands and sizes) and automated heavy duty vehicles for long-distance transport are effective technologies to improve the energy efficiency, safety and management of European road traffic. In the past years, there have been significant efforts to develop the required technologies for platooning. However, substantial challenges remain on the path to a Europe wide deployment of platooning, such as platooning with different types of vehicles in real, mixed traffic conditions, better understanding the requirements with regard to logistics, data exchange, sharing of cost savings or the perception and behaviour of other road users in presence of road trains and automated heavy duty vehicles, for instance at motorway exits.

At least three legal entities. Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other. 

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between 15 to 20 million € each would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

EU Funding rate: 70% (except for non-profit legal entities, where a rate of 100% applies). 

Electronic submission here. 

Link to the National Contact Point Finder.