Overview
The mission of ARCADE is to coordinate consensus-building across stakeholders for sound and harmonised deployment of Connected, Cooperative and Automated Driving (CAD) in Europe and beyond. ARCADE supports the commitment of the European Commission, the European Member States and the industry to develop a common approach to development, testing, validation and deployment of CAD in Europe and beyond.
ARCADE involves 23 partners, 43 associated partners and over 500 subscribers, jointly forming the CAD network of European experts and stakeholders from the public, industry and research sectors, with international outreach.
ARCADE uses a dual approach to identify and overcome bottlenecks and in parallel maximise consensus and synergy between stakeholders. Using a road metaphor, ARCADE focusses on “removing road blocks, paving the road, prevent traffic jams and providing navigation to a common destination”.
In an annual cycle, ARCADE positions the CAD Network (WP2) centrally which brings together the CAD community at national, European and International levels. The Thematic Areas (WP3) work on content creation leading to consensus-based positions, needs and scenarios. The Knowledge Base (WP4) consolidates the CAD knowhow baseline and serves as public one-stop shop overview of CAD.
The main results of ARCADE will be:
- Knowledge Base on CAD regulations and policy, on organisations & projects, on standards, on testing methodologies & data and lessons learned
- Scenarios, positions, gap analysis and recommendations on 12 thematic CAD areas
- Updates of CAD roadmaps
- Common Research & Innovation approaches across EU, US, Japan and other countries involved
- Web and news flash promotion of national, European and international CAD activities
Funding
Results
Laying the foundation for a European automated road transport roadmap
Automated road transport (ART) could help Europe resolve several societal challenges with green transport and mobility, including road safety, decarbonisation and smart cities. Effective coordination and harmonisation could accelerate the implementation of connected and automated driving (CAD) in Europe.
The ART community faces important challenges and gaps, requiring a uniform approach to R&D, testing and deployment. Furthermore, effective integration and coordination with policy-making is required to prevent fragmented rules and procedures.
The EU-funded https://connectedautomateddriving.eu/about-us/cartre/ (CARTRE) project sought to accelerate ART development and deployment by increasing market and policy certainties. “It supported the development of clearer, more consistent policies in EU Member States to ensure that ART systems and services are interoperable and implemented in a coherent way across Europe,” says coordinator Dr Stéphane Dreher.
Stakeholder Forum for the advancement of ART
CARTRE gathered key public and private stakeholders from the automotive, infrastructure, ICT and service provision sectors involved in CAD. “They exchanged experiences and knowledge about past and ongoing project results at national, European and international levels to avoid replication and built consensus for harmonised CAD deployment in Europe,” he adds.
Project partners defined deployment paths and identified challenges, drivers, influencing factors, and future research needs for CAD across Europe in 10 thematic areas. These include policy and regulation needs, safety validation and road worthiness testing, digital and physical infrastructure, and in-vehicle technology. Additional thematic areas concerned socioeconomic assessment and sustainability, plus user and societal awareness and acceptance. The consortium produced position papers in all 10 areas, which reflect the collective position of contributing stakeholders. The papers were used to update the https://www.ertrac.org/index.php?page=ertrac-roadmap (ERTRAC Roadmap) on Automated Driving and the Strategic Transport Research and Innovation Agenda on Connected and Automated Transport in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
CARTRE team members delivered a global overview and analysis that includes roadmaps, action plans, pilots and test sites from EU Member States. They analysed over 50 roadmaps and more than 80 pilot and test sites. The result is a synopsis of topics that need to be further examined in a more harmonised and precise way to support authorities and cities in developing future roadmaps and action plans.
Coordinating and harmonising European and global ART approaches
Several meetings between the European Commission, the United States and Japan supported information exchange, and identified needs for collaboration on common issues. Two high-profile events promoted European research in ART. CARTRE was responsible for co-organising the first https://connectedautomateddriving.eu/conference/ (European conference on CAD) and an https://connectedautomateddriving.eu/2018_symposium/ (interactive symposium).
The https://connectedautomateddriving.eu/arcade-project/ (ARCADE) project is building on the successful outcomes of CARTRE. It will leverage the CAD stakeholder community and provide a forum to exchange lessons learnt and best practices. ARCADE aims to extend international cooperation with other countries identified as taking on a leading role in ART development, while contributing to the ongoing trilateral EU-US-Japan cooperation efforts. It will further develop the existing knowledge base on the state of the art in European R&D vehicle automation activities and build up synergies and shared views on deployment scenarios and research needs for CAD.
ARCADE is co-organiser of the https://connectedautomateddriving.eu/eucad2019/ (2nd European Conference on CAD) to be held in Brussels in April. Participants will include political leaders from the Commission and Member States with high-level representatives from industry and road authorities to discuss all the major challenges related to automated mobility.