Abstract
The European Commission’s Communication on a European Green Deal sets out the objective of achieving climate neutrality by 2050, which will require a reduction in transport emissions. To this aim, digital technologies, together with connectivity and automation, are transforming traditional concepts of mobility, with a potential impact towards transport decarbonisation. New business models are emerging and giving rise to innovative mobility services including new online platforms for car-pooling, car or bicycle sharing services, freight operations, or smartphone applications offering real-time travel information and other analytics. This study provides an overview of the European Union (EU) funded research and innovation (R&I) and related technologies that are influencing the uptake of digital transformation in transport and identifies issues and challenges from a European perspective. To that end, it follows a two-tier approach that examines policy and legislative initiatives from the European Commission, highlighting possible challenges and enablers. Moreover, it analyses transport technology developments in Europe, focusing on the technology maturity from EU R&I framework programmes, using the European Commission’s Transport Research and Innovation Monitoring and Information System (TRIMIS). The technology analysis provides insights that aid policy decisions related to funding allocation in future R&I framework programmes.
Highlights
Transport is one of the main sectors of the European economy, having a direct impact on the environment, safety and the overall quality of life
The analyses focus on three Strategic Transport Research and Innovation Agenda (STRIA) roadmaps: smart mobility and services, cooperative, connected and automated transport, and network and traffic management systems, which have the most relevance and can be affected the most by the digital transformation in the transport sector
In TRIMIS, projects funded by the European framework programmes (FPs) are retrieved through an automated data interchange, while projects funded by member states (MS) are inserted manually by national contact points
Summary
Transport is one of the main sectors of the European economy, having a direct impact on the environment, safety and the overall quality of life. Advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), on which autonomous vehicles heavily rely, are developing steadily at present and will likely bring extensive changes to mobility and transport systems, revolutionising all aspects of society and life The impacts of such a revolution on transport can be far-reaching, from drastically reducing road accidents to allowing efficient traffic flows and decreasing road transport emissions. The analyses focus on three STRIA roadmaps: smart mobility and services, cooperative, connected and automated transport, and network and traffic management systems, which have the most relevance and can be affected the most by the digital transformation in the transport sector. Digital transformation has the potential of revolutionising smart mobility and services, it is a prerequisite for the greater development of cooperative, connected and automated transport and will enable a higher optimisation of network and traffic management systems. The digital transformation can affect real-time demand through intelligent applications and user information services, while the enhancement of the automated nature of air traffic, building upon the broader uptake of technological innovation, is important
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