According to an informal communication examined by EUROPE on Monday 14 May, the European Commission intends to carry out a range of impact studies and publish guidelines to help the expansion of automated and connected mobility within the EU and make Europe into a world leader in this field. No legislative act specifically dedicated to driverless mobility appears to be envisaged by the Commission at the moment.
Following on from the Amsterdam Declaration on autonomous and connected cars adopted in 2016 (see EUROPE 11532), the Commission wants to put into place a “gradual” and “flexible” strategy for the mid and long term in areas as diverse as research and development, the introduction of infrastructure, harmonisation of the rules and enhancing (cyber)security.
Research and implementation
A €103 million budget is therefore planned to support research and innovation for automated road transport over the 2018-2020 period, as well as €450 million through the Connecting Europe Facility for the digitalisation of transport.
In 2019, the Commission will present guidelines for using the advanced European navigation services, EGNOS and Galileo (whose services will be operational in 2019) and included in on-board vehicle systems.
Safety and approval
The Commission is seeking to modernise vehicle approval and certification and on Thursday 17 May as part of the third mobility package, it will present a revision of the regulation on general vehicle safety. This revision will include a section on truck platooning (automated lorry driving in convoys), data registration modalities and enhanced cyber security.
The Commission would also like to draw up guidelines in 2018 for guaranteeing a harmonised approach for national ad-hoc vehicle safety assessments of automated vehicles and envisages an exemptions system in European legislation for non-anticipated technologies.
In the same perspective, the Commission will be beginning work with the member states and concerned stakeholders to develop vehicle safety certification for automated vehicles, together with the high level group on competitiveness and sustainable growth in the automobile industry, GEAR 2030 (see EUROPE 11516).
At an international level, the Commission would like to make progress with the international technical harmonisation of automated vehicles at the United Nations.
Road traffic and data
At a European level, the Commission is calling on the member states to develop greater convergence in national traffic rules through a high-level group on road safety with references to the 1949 Geneva Convention and the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic.
The Commission would like to adopt a delegated regulation by the end of 2018 for implementing the directive on intelligent transport systems, in order to guarantee reliable communication between vehicles and infrastructure, whilst providing protection in data exchanges.
As a means of ensuring fair competition and tackling potential market distortions, the Commission would like to facilitate the breakdown of in-vehicle data and publish recommendations for improving access to this data.
Ethical questions
Another important point includes the societal impact of automated transport. In this connection, the Commission indicates that it would like to evaluate, by way of the Horizon 2020 framework programme, the socio-economic impact of the emergence of this new sector within the EU and subsequently set up a European forum focusing on the ethical questions that automated mobility raises.
The Commission will be launching several impact studies on the ramifications of automation on European legislation and in this connection mentions the driving license directive, the driving time regulation and the directive on the training professional drivers.
According to the Commission, the expansion of the automated sector in Europe could increase European GDP by 8% and generate up to €800 billion in revenues. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau and Pascal Hansens)