Category: News

On April 7th, LEVITATE hosted a public webinar showcasing the principles of backcasting and the opportunities the resulting Policy Support Tool (PST) offers. Additionally, results of case studies in Vienna were presented, including the impacts of tolls on Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) and last-mile automated urban shuttle services. 

First, Andrew Morris from Loughborough University, presented the LEVITATE project and its goal of building tools to help European cities, regions and national governments prepare for a future with increasing levels of automated vehicles. Amongst others, the project has developed methods of measuring the impacts of CCAM, including using backcasting principles, on mobility, safety, the environment and society. 

Then Martin Zach from the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) laid out how LEVITATE’s backcasting methodology was established. Essentially, the method approaches the regulation of CCAM by starting from the top: initially, high-level visions and targets are set up (e.g. reducing CO2 emissions, accidents and fatalities), then possible influencing factors are identified (e.g. AV penetration rate and modal split of all journeys) and finally policy interventions are drawn up (e.g. road use pricing or public space reorganization).

This methodology is part of the foundations used to design LEVITATE’s open-access, web-based and user-friendly Policy Support Tool (PST), which was presented by Apostolos Ziakopoulos, from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). It is a one-stop-shop that integrates all of LEVITATE’s methodologies and findings, which can be used to assess CCAM general and targeted policy impacts using different automation penetration level scenarios. The webinar attendees were walked through the different parameters of the tool, which includes the assessment of 23 impacts, policy recommendations, benefits and costs of CCAM policies. 

Finally, Gerald Richter and Johannes Müller from AIT concluded by showing how regulating CCAM could impact the city of Vienna. The researchers presented how the use of various tolls could influence modality shares, including automated and human-driven cars. They further highlighted how autonomous last-mile urban shuttle service could be deployed according to demographic density, average age and location of neighborhoods in Vienna. 

See the presentation containing all the slides from this webinar »
The recording of the webinar can be viewed below:

LEVITATE’s final conference will be held on May 25th in Brussels.  
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The aim of the LEVITATE project is to prepare a new impact assessment framework to enable policymakers to manage the introduction of connected and automated transport systems, maximise the benefits and utilise the technologies to achieve societal objectives. As part of this work, LEVITATE seeks to forecast societal level impacts of connected and automated transport systems (CATS) or, as these systems are more recently referred to, cooperative, connected, and automated mobility (CCAM). These impacts include effects on mobility, safety, environment and economy. Work Package 6 considers the societal impacts of automated passenger car use in urban environments. Within WP6, the impacts of six policy measures related to particular developments in automated passenger cars are considered in what are termed sub-use cases.

The goal of this deliverable is to summarize the more detailed results presented in deliverables D6.2-D6.4 to provide an overview of the main expected trends for each of the quantified impacts (e.g. emissions, congestion). D6.5 Guidelines and recommendations for future policy of cooperative and automated passenger transport is written by Gebhard, S., Nabavi Niaki, M., Schermers, G ,Goldenbeld, C. (all SWOV, The Netherlands), Chaudhry, A (Loughborough).

Cooperative, connected, and automated mobility (CCAM) is expected to be introduced in increasing numbers over the next decades, having considerable impacts on mobility, safety, the environment and society as a whole. The Horizon 2020 project LEVITATE aims to prepare a new impact assessment framework to enable policymakers to manage the introduction of cooperative, connected and automated mobility, maximise the benefits and utilise the technologies to achieve societal objectives.

LEVITATE  studied 3 use cases: automated urban transport, the automated passenger cars and the automated freight transport. In terms of the automated urban transport use case two sub-use cases were studied. The point-to-point automated urban shuttle service (AUSS) and the on-demand AUSS that were formulated after an extensive literature review and a Stakeholders reference group workshop. For these sub-use cases several impacts were quantified on traffic, safety, the environment, and society using microscopic simulation, mesoscopic simulation, system dynamics and the Delphi method.

This webinar took place on 23 November. The impact assessment methodologies used and the results that occurred regarding the automated urban transport sub-use cases were discussed. Several partners presented their findings including National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Loughborough University (LOUGH) and the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT).

In case couldn’t attend this webinar, watch the recording »

The next  LEVITATE webinar will take place on 14 December.