From drivers assistance to full automation for improved efficiency and better safety

The automobile has become the dominant transport mode in the world in the last century. In order to meet a continuously growing demand for transport, one solution is to change the control approach for vehicles to full driving automation, which removes the driver from the control loop to improve efficiency and reduce accidents. Recent work shows that there are several realistic paths towards this deployment: driving assistance on passenger cars; automated commercial vehicles on dedicated infrastructures; new forms of urban transport (car-sharing and cybercars). Cybercars, which are vehicles with fully automated driving capabilities, have already been put into operation in Europe, and it seems that this approach could lead the way towards full automation on most urban, and later interurban, infrastructures. The European projects CyberCars and CyberMove are exploring the technical and the socio-economic feasibility of this approach.