On 17 March, ERTICO’s ENSEMBLE project marked a very important milestone. The Consortium, led by the Dutch independent research organization TNO, held its final public event to mark the end of the project on 31 March. The event was held in Brussels at the renowned Autoworld Museum in Brussels and the hybrid format allowed the over 200 registered invitees to remotely interact with the speakers while contributing to the debate on the adoption of multi-brand truck platooning in Europe.

The technical speeches of the experts from TNO, Universite Gustave Eiffel and Applus IDIADA alternated two high-level speakers’ panels discussing, respectively, the European Union and the external stakeholders’ perspectives.

In the morning, Ewa Ptaszynska, Deputy Head of Unit, Road Transport Unit, DG Move; Patrick Mercier-Handisyde, Senior Policy Officer, Future Urban & Mobility Systems, DG RTD; Antony Lagrange, Team Leader Automated/Connected Vehicles and Safety, DG GROW and Georgios Sarros, Project Officer, Horizon Europe Transport, CINEA set in motion the talk about the future potential deployment of truck platoons on European roads.

A highlight of the event was Antony Lagrange confirming that the next logical step for the European Commission is now to refer to the ENSEMBLE’s harmonised V2V protocol format enabling truck platooning via an implementation measure of the General Vehicle Safety Regulation 2019/2144. This represents a significant advancement in the debate for the future implementation of truck platooning technologies in Europe.

In the afternoon, external stakeholders discussed the future of multi-brand truck platooning. Stefan Deix, Director EUCAR/CCAM Association, David Storer, Director Research Innovation & New Mobility – CLEPA, Steve Phillips, Secretary-General, CEDR and Carlo Giro, Manager-EU Goods Transport IRU addressed the issue remarking the perspectives of truck manufacturers, road authorities and mobility and logistic organisations.

 

To learn more about ENSEMBLE’s achievements, watch the final movie here.

Read ENSEMBLE’s latest news article here.