Driving you to emptier roads
A new EU project, CityMobil, plans to make the roads in Europe's cities more efficient - by eliminating the drivers. The €40 million project involves 28 partners in 10 countries, and three trial sites have already been selected - London's Heathrow airport, the new exhibition centre in Rome and the town of Castellón in eastern Spain. While this sounds like something from a science fiction film, the ideas are already in use. 'Yes, this sounds like science fiction, but there are already driverless systems, for example in Cappelle aan de Ijssel near Rotterdam in the Netherlands, linking to an industrial park, but on a separate piece of road,' said Jan P. van Dijke, from Netherlands-based TNO Science and Industry, which coordinated the project, speaking to CORDIS News. 'Difficulties exist on public roads, where the driver is responsible. If there is no driver, who is responsible if something were to go wrong? Ultimately, we need changes to the law, public acceptance and acceptance by authorities,' he added. Cities have always had problems with traffic congestion - the traffic problems of many European cities are legendary. Athens bans cars with particular number plates on certain days to alleviate congestion and pollution, while London has introduced a congestion charge to actively discourage driving in the capital. Some may argue that the solution would be to simply introduce more public transport, but this limits where a person can go, and could mean the introduction of new infrastructure, such as a track or rail. The CityMobil project examines the use of a system somewhere between existing concepts of public and private transport. 'What we are aiming at is a guided system using existing infrastructure,' he explains. 'Road infrastructure is already there, and this is important as infrastructure is the most expensive part of the system. You cannot introduce a new infrastructure system - you must integrate the existing transport systems in the city,' he says. CityMobil envisages driverless public transport systems taking you exactly where you want to go, and when you want to go. 'The on-demand factor is very important, even using a fixed infrastructure, you could arrange, on demand, a vehicle, which could then take you to anywhere you might want to go,' explains Mr van Dijke. The project, funded under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), hopes to make better use of public transport systems, so that there is less congestion, pollution and traffic, building on the FP5 CyberMove and CyberCars projects. The scheme in Heathrow will connect the vast fifth terminal, due to open in 2008, with the car park. Some 18 futuristic looking driverless pods will run along 4.2 km of track. 'Imagine that you arrive at Heathrow and want to get from the car park to the terminal,' explains senior scientist Torgeir Vaa, from Norwegian project partner SINTEF. 'You call up an automatic driverless unit that is circulating and it comes to the spot where you are parked.' In Rome, special driverless 'cybercars' will take visitors between a new exhibition centre, the car park and nearby railway station. Finally, in Castellón, special buses that can run either with or without a driver, depending on the traffic conditions, will operate in the town centre. 'Although Rome, Castellón and Heathrow are the major demonstration sites, plans and concepts will also be set out for a number of other cities, in order to help local authorities make decisions regarding automated transport systems,' explains Mr Vaa. 'Some of these cities will also benefit from hosting small-scale demonstrations of automated vehicles. This will all depend on how active the individual cities are.' Again, working systems are already running. 'Another system in Eindhoven uses a driver enhanced system, linking the city to the airport, and there are other systems in France and the Netherlands,' explains Mr van Dijke. The Eindhoven system is 'more like automation, with manual access to the system. The vehicle can dock automatically for people to get out quickly. These are small things but they add up to create a more advanced and efficient transport system,' he says. CityMobil also builds on the FP5 Stardust project, which developed ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) technologies, to help both traffic congestion and driver safety. The results were piloted in the Norwegian cities of Lillehammer and Trondheim.