The commercial adoption of CCAM still faces challenges due to limited understanding of its potential societal benefits and issues related to software integrity and truthfulness of external data. Coordinated by ICCS, the PoDIUM project addresses these gaps to boost the uptake of CCAM in Europe, a priority topic for the European Union, and to develop the public’s trust in and acceptance of CCAM-enabled mobility.
ERTICO partner ICCS assumes the important role of leading the overall work of the PoDIUM project by ensuring the efforts of its unique consortium are synchronised to achieve a real impact in the deployment and uptake of CCAM in Europe. The PoDIUM consortium consists of 28 partners with complementary, multi-disciplinary scientific and operational expertise including vehicle manufacturers, automotive suppliers, traffic management operators, research organisations, and local authorities.
Building on five urban and highway use cases, PoDIUM tackles different requirements for the availability and performance of connectivity as well as the different cooperation enablers to advance key technologies in the physical and digital infrastructure (PDI) for CCAM deployment. According to ICCS, PoDIUM’s PDI developments will increase road safety and traffic efficiency while reducing the environmental impact of vehicles by providing road users with real-time traffic data from various sources, including vehicles and road sign units (RSUs). This will be particularly important to improve emergency services, which is the focus of PoDIUM’s Use Case 2 that will be demonstrated in the project’s Spanish Living Lab. This use case will help make all road users aware of the presence of the emergency vehicle, while prioritising its movement across traffic by synchronising the manoeuvres of the involved connected and automated vehicles. The use case will consider the role of the infrastructure in informing road users of the approach of an emergency vehicle by evaluating potential risks, detecting the presence of vulnerable road users, and providing notifications.
Through advanced environment perception models and seamless data exchange, PoDIUM also aims to (re)create a detailed digital twin of the physical world in real time to improve traffic flows. The digital twin will enable connected and automated vehicles to optimise their route based on collected accurate data, avoiding the creation of bottlenecks. PoDIUM is also developing a commuting service that facilitates seamless mobility across borders using automated shuttles. This will help reduce traffic volume and vehicle ownership, which will also help improve traffic flows.
As PoDIUM’s project coordinator, ICCS, and in particular the ISENSE group, brings extensive expertise in ITS and Smart Mobility gained by working on more than 120 EU-funded and national research projects. ICCS will exploit the knowledge and experience gained from the project and its technical achievements to strengthen its network of collaborators and identify new research directions, with the possibility of creating a technologically oriented spin-off.
You can read more about ICCS’s role in PoDIUM on the project website.
