System scenarios of automated driving in passenger mobility (SAFiP)

Principal Investigator: Robert Braun
Project Team: Elisabeth Frankus, Matthias Allinger
Project Duration: 2018
Funding: Mobilität der Zukunft 9. AS (FFG); project number 13977050
 

Project Information: The increasing digitalization and automation will lead us to a significant change of the transport system, mobility and settlement structures in Austria. This is especially the case for partially automated and in particular for fully automated driving. In what form and to what extent this will happen, however, is still completely unclear.

Numerous drivers and developments such as climate change, technological and demographic developments or urbanization will not only have parallel, but reciprocal intersectional effects and thus increase complexity. At the same time, however, the economy, public administrations and politicians need the most concrete possible framework for the use of increasingly automated supplies for passenger and freight mobility. This is particularly important when automated traffic (AV) shall support the objectives of sustainable spatial and transport development.

There are already studies on the future development of the (national) transport systems respectively on the impact of AV. These, however, are usually very superficial and the possibilities of future research and scenario methods are exploited only to a limited extent. For Austria, such scenarios have not yet been developed.

In the project “System Scenarios Automated Driving in Personal Mobility” (SAFiP), scenarios for personal mobility are developed with which the transport system is described under anticipation of the possibilities and developments in the area of automated driving. This is done on the basis of a multi-methodic approach in different scenario technics and methods of forecasting and backcasting in a broad, comprehensive and repeated dialogue with different kinds of experts and stakeholders from politics, administration, science, industry and civil society. An important basis for work is the relevant use cases within the action plan “Automatisiertes Fahren”. On the basis of these scenarios, transport relevant spectra of effects are to be estimated and quantified.

The analysis – in particular – takes into account the interactions between society, settlement structure, mobility and transport. The aim is to derive the needs and necessities for various policy areas (RTI policy, transport policy, spatial planning etc.) and concrete further measures. A special focus within the project lies on the importance of fully automated driving for public transport, which will be explicitly taken into account in the scenarios.