Towards Automated Transport Systems: European Initiatives, Challenges and the Way Forward

In modern cities and societies the quality of transportation systems and the mobility options offered to their citizens as well as the means for goods transportation, are an indication of how advanced they are. The provision of mobility alternatives and at the same time the alleviation of congestion and pollution are challenges for every city. More and more of them are turning to technology providing better, faster and cheaper ways to move around. As what we call smart cities is becoming the way forward for most of the cities of the modern world, smart or intelligent transportation is one of their main pillars, together with telecommunication and energy. One of the most promising technological solutions, that until recently was considered as science fiction, is the insertion of automation in road transport both for people and for goods which is the focus of this paper. In this paper, the evolution and history of automotive safety systems is presented, from the invention of the seat belt and the airbag to the development of more advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). The next step, not forgetting connectivity, in the evolution of safety systems is automation in road transport. Nowadays, several initiatives in this field are ongoing both in Europe and worldwide, however technical challenges and deployment barriers still exist. These are briefly outlined in this paper. The main non-technical challenges are the legal and liability issues but also the way road transport systems, that will include automated elements or will be fully automated, will be organized and controlled. Building on the need to address automation in a structured, holistic and integrated way the paper is introducing the idea of an Automated Transport System (ATS) where there is a shared level of automation between the vehicle and the infrastructure side, in a collaborative scheme. Such novel transport systems are anticipated to lead to improved efficiency, safety and traffic flow and to minimize environmental effects of transport, thus leading to an increased deployment for automated vehicles and to a transformation of smart cities transport system.