Press Releases

Concerns about interaction between CAVs and traditional mobility. 84% of the vulnerable users (elderly, pregnant women, disabled, travellers with heavy luggage, parents with strollers) believe that a connected transport environment will help them to use public transport more easily and independently; 90% consider important a high degree of autonomy in daily mobility; 62% think that connected transport environments will cut travel time by half and 47% are willing to pay for this type of service.

The answer comes from PAsCAL Project's Immersive Arena Many pedestrians do not trust autonomous vehicles: they fear that, towards them, this type of vehicle will not behave in the right way. This is the result of Immersive Arena analysis of Workpackage 4 (WP4), part of the PAsCAL*project. (link to the website www.pascal-project.eu) a series of experimental activities dedicated to evaluate pedestrian acceptance and behaviour in front of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs).

Under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, the European Commission has recently funded 4 new projects focused on driver behaviour and acceptance of connected, cooperative and automated transport: Drive2TheFuture, PAsCAL, SUaaVE, Trustonomy.

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.