PAsCAL will give guidance on connected and autonomous vehicles in Europe

A consortium of 13 international partners will test European users’ knowledge and acceptance of autonomous vehicles, to create a ‘Guide2Autonomy’ containing 100 technical, political, legal and economic recommendations.

How much aware are we of the connected and autonomous cars? What are our expectations about them? Are we worried? Are we ready to drive them or, better, to be transported by them? Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) will be the future mobility, in a very near future. The challenge is on for governments, public authorities, manufacturers and consumers.

The European project PAsCAL, acronym for “Enhance driver behaviour and Public Acceptance of Connected and Autonomous vehicLes”, has been the first one to take on this challenge since the very beginning of June.

PAsCAL – under the EU Horizon 2020 Programme - includes 13 international partners: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology; Universities of Mannheim, Leeds, Liverpool and Bourgogne Franche-Comté; Automobile Club d’Italia; RED Driving Services; European Blind Union; S3Innovation; Realdolmen; Oply; E-Bus Competence Center and LuxMobility.

Over the next three years, PAsCAL is going to measure and test the degree of awareness and acceptance of European mobility consumers towards connected and autonomous vehicles, with a special focus on road education and on the interaction between traditional and autonomous cars.

The findings will be used to create a Guide2Autonomy containing 100 technical, political, legal and economic recommendations to provide guidance and facilitate the strategic decisions on mobility at an international, national and local level.

People have great expectations about new technologies and CAVs, but more information is needed. A few international studies point out that drivers and pedestrians even feel worried about CAVs: according to a Eurobarometer survey, 61% of Europeans are concerned at the prospect of being in a https://www.pascal-project.eu/ Page 2 driverless car. This percentage drops to 56% among USA people according to the Pew Research Centre Survey. The French are more favorable (68% according to the Payre report), while the Italians are less favorable (50% as reported by ACI Fondazione Filippo Caracciolo).

No comprehensive and updated surveys at UE level are though available so far. The main purpose of the PAsCAL project is therefore to fill this gap, giving an overview of the users’ degree of acceptance and confidence about CAVs in order to better advise Governments and manufacturers on their strategic decisions about mobility