On May 9, ERTICO will organise a European Parliamentary breakfast meeting to give MEPs an insight into the perspectives of automated mobility applied to freight road transport. The European ITS stakeholder community (ERTICO), the automotive sector (ACEA), and the Conference of European road directors (CEDR) will come together at the European Parliament to present the Truck Platooning challenges at stake.
Truck Platooning presents a unique opportunity for the efficient transport of tomorrow. The progress of digital technologies of cooperative and automated vehicles is opening new perspectives for freight road transport. Truck platooning is fast emerging as an answer to many major challenges of long distance road freight transport: driver efficiency improvement and cost reduction, emission/decarbonisation, logistics chain improvement, road safety and infrastructure capacity.
There remain, however, some issues that require further investigation: user acceptance, impact on traffic and infrastructure, operation and business models. Full implementation requires action from all stakeholders, technologies providers, OEMs, roads operators, designers and construction companies, as well as regulators and public authorities.
During a one-hour breakfast meeting on May 9, ERTICO, ACEA, and CEDR will present the Truck Platooning challenges at stake to Members of the European Parliament.
MEP Dieter-Lebrecht Koch will host the meeting. ERTICO CEO Jacob Bangsgaard will give an introduction to the European Truck Platooning Challenge. Erik Jonnaert, ACEA Secretary General, and Serge van Dam, Principal Advisor for Traffic Management at Rijkswaterstaat, will present the perspective of the automotive and road authorities, respectively. Maxime Flament, Head of Department of Connected & Automated Mobility at ERTICO, will lead the Q&A/debate session.
It is hoped that some discussion will centre around the next steps for truck platooning with questions such as:
- How to prevent a patchwork of local regulations and facilitate a harmonised exemption procedure allowing automated driving and accelerate large scale cross-border testing, on open roads, and along commercial routes?
- How can the work of the European Parliament in the field of robotics address specific issues of truck platooning?
- At the meta-level, the industry acknowledges the competitive advantages truck-platooning could bring to the European markets and economy. How can European Parliament support the necessary steps to accelerate its implementation?
It is anticipated that the working meeting will be attended by several MEPs and representations from ACEA, CEDR, CLEPA, EREG, ERTICO, EuroShippercouncil, IFFSTAR, IRU and RWS.
Follow these links to see the full agenda of the breakfast meeting at the European Parliament and get more information about truck platooning.
