Safe and sustainable mobility

The emergence of a smart and clean vehicle is a strategic issue at a global and European level against the backdrop of rising fuel prices and tougher regulations on CO2 emissions

Safe and sustainable mobility

The emergence of a smart and clean vehicle is a strategic issue at a global and European level against the backdrop of rising fuel prices and tougher regulations on CO2 emissions (target of 95 g/km in 2020). The automotive industry is likely to be reshaped in the next 10 to 5 years as result of four megatrends that have been rising in the last 2 years as key competitive factors:
  • New mobility use concepts;
  • Automated driving connected with infrastructures,
  • Digital experience in manufacturing and
  • Electrification.

The main objective of the proposed thematic area is to gather the industrial challenges involved in the transition towards decarbonisation and digitalisation of the road transport system. This transition is expected to have a disruptive impact in the SME competitiveness and thus in the socio-economic regional environment. Although 75% of motor vehicles is manufactured by car suppliers, the transformation of the road transport system is far to be only an issue related to the motor vehicle manufacturing groups. Fourteen million jobs in Europe depend on the automotive industry and the sector is the first in terms of R&D investments in the EU. In a fast-changing environment, this industry faces many scientific, technological and economic challenges.

Boosting innovation at interregional level undoubtedly becomes a key factor as well as a powerful tool to enable the European industry actors to maintain Europe's standing as a leading industrial position while maximizing the industry's contribution to growth and employment. Moreover, as the future of the automotive industry depends on the ability to tackle the challenges of tomorrow’s mobility, environmental issues and new mobility behaviour also require that plenty of public and private stakeholders with diverse business interests work together in a collaborative and interdisciplinary way. Thus, mobility and logistic clusters also play a central role in contributing to the competitiveness of the EU transport industry, sharing skills within a joint ecosystem.

Accordingly, the main goal of this thematic area is to strength the innovation regional capacity beyond automotive industry to facilitate investments based on open innovation infrastructure and new technologies provided by clusters in regional ecosystems. Through a closer collaboration, the partner regions and cluster organizations complete the interdisciplinary competences needed and will be able to respond to industrial challenges of implementing a ‘Safe and Sustainable Mobility’ (hereinafter SSM). Among other key initiatives, this proposal gives special attention to highlight the most promising innovations for regional development, to identify replicability/scalability investment priorities and to allocate funding resources more effectively.

More specifically, this proposal aims to further support the deployment of advanced research and technologies along the value chain by connecting innovative SMEs and value chain segments from traditional value chains.

Thematic working areas

  • Smart vehicle (e.g. connectivity, autonomous driving, new services, 5G, mechatronics)
  • Smart infrastructure (e.g. smart roads, dynamic parking, risk assessment)
  • Sustainable mobility (e.g. energy and resource efficiency, decarbonisation, advanced chemistry, physical internet, vehicle materials lightening)
  • Safe mobility (e.g. IoT, cybersecurity, complex systems engineering, human machine interface software)
  • Data (e.g. data for freight and logistic)

List of regions involved

Contact details of the leading regions

Aragon

Francisco VIGALONDO
Aragón Exterior, Brussels’ liaison office, 10 rue Montoyer, 1000 Bruxelles, +32 (2) 503 02 08

Bavaria

Uwe PFEIL
 E-Mobility Cluster Regensburg, Franz-Mayer-Str., 93053 Regensburg, +39 (0) 941 - 604 889 55

Ile-de-France

Françoise GUASPARE
Ile-de-France Europe, Brussels’ liaison office, 10 rue Montoyer, 1000 Bruxelles +32 (2) 289 25 13
Mathilde PETIT
Pôle MOV’EO, Avenue Galilée, 76800 Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, +33 (0)6 17 94 14 63

Contact details of DG REGIO

Past events

Past meetings:
  • 2nd partnership plenary meeting, September 2019, Zaragoza
  • 1st round sub-thematic group, September 2019, Zaragoza
  • SSM general online meeting, November 2019, Online

Past workshops:
  • Imagine Mobility Forum, June 2019, Paris
  • Road safety awareness and learning for youth (in the frame of the European Mobility Week, September 2019, Zaragoza

Related documents

Monitoring reports containing a management report and a progress report prepared by the lead regions are available here:
Monitoring report Mobility July-December 2019
English
(251 KB - PDF)
Download 
Other relevant documents:
COMMUNICATION (COM(2018) 283) On the road to automated mobility: An EU strategy for mobility of the future
English
(823 KB - PDF)
Download 
DÉVELOPPEMENT DES VÉHICULES AUTONOMES – Orientations stratégiques pour l’action publique (in French)
English
(1.9 MB - PDF)
Download 
Declaration of Amsterdam – Cooperation in the field of connected and automated driving
English
(338 KB - PDF)
Download 
Connected and Automated Vehicles on a freeway scenario on traffic congestion and network capacity
English
(883 KB - PDF)
Download 

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Events

EVENT |
Industrial cooperation & smart recovery
This EWRC workshop will be an opportunity to meet regional experts who are putting in practice interregional cooperation in the frame of their S3, supporting industrial modernisation for a smart post-Covid recovery.