CORDIS provides links to public deliverables and publications of HORIZON projects.
Links to deliverables and publications from FP7 projects, as well as links to some specific result types such as dataset and software, are dynamically retrieved from OpenAIRE .
Exploitable results
The main achievements and results of the project are as follows.
- A review of the existing literature on the economics of infrastructure funding and mark-up methods has been carried out.
- The development of scenarios to address the problems of the current funding framework for large European transport infrastructures. These scenarios were developed using three 'dimensions' (which are: a) how to spend the money; b) how to raise the money; c) the organisational structure), and range from heavy reliance on a European fund and low mark-ups on user prices for the new infrastructure to a small reliance on the European fund and an important role of the internal funding of investments via mark-ups.
- Computation of revenues and financial gaps. Firstly, revenues from pricing and possible financing gaps per mode and per country were calculated for the EU transport baseline scenario developed with Scenes-Tremove II (Tremove is a transport and emissions simulation model developed for the European Commission). This gives an idea of the financing gaps with respect to the TEN-T investments and also the ability of a given mode to sustain additional taxation.
- Computation of the effects on revenue streams and welfare of additional transport taxes. The overall conclusion is that more tax revenues can be raised in the transport sector at a limited welfare cost.
- Testing of the EU-wide equity and efficiency effects of alternative pricing and revenue use scenarios. A methodology has been developed which provides a useful 'benefit distribution' rule for determining whether transport infrastructure projects generate European added value and should therefore be subsidised by the EU. Using this methodology, the impacts of the priority projects for the regions of the European Union have been assessed, comparing the scenarios with and without EU subsidies. The conclusions are that: a) not all projects have significant benefit spill-overs; b) the rate of return of many projects is low; c) when there are benefit spillovers (so that the project receives EU funding), the rate of return increases significantly but this is often insufficient to adopt the project; d) the proposed EU subsidy scheme does not appear to systematically hurt poorer countries.
- Taxes and marginal external costs have been compared to gain insight into the most efficient application of taxes on the transport sector. The analysis was differentiated by vehicle type, time period, type of infrastructure and country, and has shown that, when taxes are low relative to marginal external costs, then it is economically efficient to increase taxation; similarly, high subsidies relative to marginal external costs are inefficient. Furthermore, peak-period taxes seem to be most economically efficient.
Policy implications are as follows.
- P1: EU should be involved in infrastructure decisions when there are significant spillovers between the provision of a piece of infrastructure in one country and costs and benefits in neighbouring countries.
- P2: Given that it is costly to gather extra tax revenues from general income taxes, an increase of taxes on road use in the EU may be the best way to generate extra revenues. This can take the form of a small additional excise on motor fuel.
- P3: There is no generally accepted cost benefit guide for assessing transport infrastructure projects in the EU. This means that there is a large risk of a positive bias in project assessments. Therefore, there is a clear need for models that can help to form a second opinion on projects that apply for EU funding.
The 1st Autocom workshop on Preventive and Active Safety Systems was successfully organised on 19-20 September, 2005, and provided an excellent opportunity for networking with scientific partners. Scientific networking efforts continued through conference and automotive control technical committee meeting attendances, a visit to the University of Salerno in Italy and a visit to the Profusion workshop in Brussels, Belgium of the Prevent IP project. Both visits were made to explore EU FP project collaboration possibilities.
The 2nd Autocom workshop on Powertrain Modelling, Control and HiL Simulation was held during the International Conference on Automotive Technologies in November, 2006. This was the second of the three annual workshops in automotive control, which is funded by the Autocom Automotive Controls and Mechatronics Research Center. The main aim of the workshop was to gather the leading experts in the Powertrain Modelling, Control and HiL Simulation area to discuss the latest developments in an atmosphere suitable for networking and exchange of ideas.
The second workshop provided a very good opportunity for continuation of networking with potential EU FP7 project proposal preparation partners. During 13th of May- 12th of June 2006, Mr. Bahadir Akyildiz, one of the engineering researchers of the Autocom Research center, visited the IMRT Laboratory (Measurement and Control Lab.) of ETH Zurich. He focused on the Discrete Modelling and Control of Diesel Engines. Apart from that, he also joined the IMRT staff to conduct experiments on spark ignition (SI) engines. He developed and tested a robust idle speed control system.
The 3rd Autocom workshop on Hybrid Electric Vehicle Modelling and Control was the last of the three annual workshops in automotive control being organised by the European Union (EU) Framework Programme 6 (FP6) funded Autocom Automotive Controls and Mechatronics Research Center. The main aim of the workshop was to gather the leading experts in the Hybrid Electric Vehicle and Modelling research area to discuss the latest developments in an atmosphere suitable for networking and exchange of ideas. The workshop mainly concentrated on the third area of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Control, Modeling and HiL Simulation.
There were several visits to the centre associated with work on Intelligent vehicles. Prof. Ümit Özgüner from the CAR-IT center at the Ohio State University visited the centre on November 21, 2007 to discuss further joint research work possibilities and possible EU FP7 project partnerships. He also presented the experience of the OSU-ACT team, a semi-finalist in the Darpa Urban Challenge race, in a seminar. Dr. Karen Sommel, leader of the image processing group at the Institute for Measurement and Control and project leader in the special research centre Cognitive Automobiles, responsible for the environmental perception, from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany visited the center on February 8, 2008 to exchange ideas on future FP project cooperation possibilities.
Another scientific networking visit to the centre was by Dr. Alexander Schmitt from IPG Automotive in Germany on collaboration on hardware-in-the-loop systems for preventive and active safety systems. A copy of Carmaker HiL (real time capable version) was provided free of charge to our centre. Other visits included the visit by Magna Steyr, which was interested in opening a branch in Turkey and a visit by Renault France arranged in the Tubitak Mam research center on future collaboration possibilities on active safety controllers and their hardware-in-the-loop systems. Dr. Umut Genç from AVL UK visited the center. AVL recently opened an AVL Turkey in a nearby technopark.
RTD capacity improvement efforts in all three thrust areas of the centre were made possible by the three workshops and scientific networking activities mentioned above and the upgrading of the computational hardware, the driving simulators, the instrumentation and vehicle dynamics and engine modelling software of the centre.
The project has increased the RTD capacity of our centre in the automotive control and mechatronics area. We already had very close ties with the Turkish automotive industry before the project. The abovementioned RTD capacity improvement made it easier for the centre to conduct research projects for the automotive industry. There are 19 automotive OEMs in Turkey. Turkey is the number one bus manufacturer in Europe and one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in Europe. Our ties with the Turkish automotive industry are now closer.
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