Economic implications of a connected and automated mobility in Europe

Abstract

Connected and Automated Mobility will disrupt the road transport sector which has remained substantially unchanged since the vehicle became mass produced in the first half of the twentieth century. Given the central role of mobility for our society and economy, the implications of a transformation in the transport sector will not be limited to transport but will regard many other aspects of our society. The aim of this paper is to analyse the possible future socio-economic implications of such a disruption in the road transport sector. It builds upon a set of future road transport scenarios and aims to identify the main impacts in different economic sectors mostly from a qualitative perspective. Results show that the deployment of Connected and Automated Vehicles could provide profitable opportunities for sectors like automotive, electronics and software, telecommunication, data services, digital media and freight transport; but other sectors including insurance and maintenance and repair are identified as businesses that might suffer revenue decreases in the future. In all scenarios, the policy implications of the transformation can be strong, which implies that the evolution of the transport system has to be carefully monitored in order to promptly cope with possible future effects.