Introduction: Smarter, Safer, Cleaner Cars
Driving is central to our daily life.We rely on it for getting to work, going on holidays, keeping in touch with our friends, and having our goods delivered. Yet driving also brings problems, such as congestion and environmental impact, and our lives could change in an instant or even end because of a road accident. Europe’s 300 million drivers want their driving to be easier with less trouble, less delay, and, above all, less chance of getting injured.
Information and communication technologies (ICT), which enable the building of intelligent vehicles and infrastructures, offer new advanced solutions to today’s transport problems.These intelligent systems can assist the driver in the driving functions, thus preventing, avoiding or mitigating accidents.They can provide drivers with real time information about the road network, thus avoiding congestion. And they can optimise a journey or the engine performance, thus improving overall energy efficiency.
There is clear evidence that investments in such technologies bring major social and economic benefits.
The pollution of the environment, traffic safety and congestion are truly European problems affecting all 25 Member States: common European solutions need to be found. Moreover, although many intelligent systems based on ICT are already available and more are under development, their take-up in the market is very slow. Action is needed to enable European citizens to benefit more from these technologies.
The Commission’s Intelligent Car Initiative is a comprehensive answer to the need of citizens, industry and the Member States to find common solutions to Europe’s mobility problems and to improve the take-up of ICT in road transport. In the long run, it aims to move towards a new situation, where cars don’t crash anymore, and traffic congestion is reduced. As one of the flagship projects of the i2010 programme to boost Europe’s digital economy, the Intelligent Car Initiative provides a further push towards smarter, safer and cleaner vehicles. The Initiative builds on efforts under the Information Society Technology (IST) Research Programmes, where over €400M has been invested in intelligent car related research over the last eight years.
The Initiative has three main objectives. Firstly, with the help of the eSafety Forum it will coordinate and promote the work of relevant stakeholders, such as industry, service providers and Member States. Secondly, it will support ICT-based research and development in the area of smarter, cleaner and safer vehicles as well as facilitate the take-up and use of research results.Thirdly, it will create awareness among consumers and decision makers of ICT-based solutions to stimulate user’s demand for these systems and create socio-economic acceptance.
Setting the Scene: Sustainable Mobility for Europe
Challenges for Road Transport
European society depends heavily on mobility.Yet transport entails severe problems, such as congestion of road networks and urban areas, harmful effects on the environment and public health, waste of energy and, above all, accidents which cause fatalities, injuries and material damage.
In the EU, congestion costs amount to €50 billion per year, or 0.5% of Community GDP, a figure which could double by 2010.The number of cars per thousand persons has increased from 232 in 1975 to 460 in 2002. The overall distance travelled by road vehicles has tripled in the last 30 years and, in the last decade, the volume of road freight grew by 35% contributing to 7,500 km or 10% of the major networks being affected daily by traffic jams.
Concerning energy efficiency and emissions, the transport sector consumed 338 million tonnes oil equivalent
(MToe), representing 31% of the total energy consumption in the EU. Road transport consumed 281 MToe, or 26%
of the overall energy consumed. Road transport’s CO2 emissions account for 835 million tonnes per year, representing 85% of the total transport emissions.
Investigations show that up to 50% of fuel consumption is caused by congested traffic situations and non-optimal
driving behaviour. Of all transport problems, safety is the one with the most serious impact on our daily lives. It also has a high impact in socio-economic terms.
With its “White Paper” of September 2001, the European Commission set the target to halve road fatalities by 2010. Although the situation has improved considerably, every year there are still over 40,000 fatalities on EU roads, with about 1.3 million accidents and a cost of around €200 billion per year, representing 2% of the EU GDP.
Research indicates that human error is involved in over 90% of accidents, and in almost three-quarters of cases the human error is solely to blame. As an example, a recent study concluded that if we have an accident when driving at a speed of 50 km/h and we could brake half a second earlier, we could reduce the crash energy by 50%. But an analysis of German accidents showed that 39% of passenger vehicles and 26% of trucks do not activate brakes before a collision, and some 40% do not brake effectively, underlining our limits as drivers.