Vision


Towards safer, more efficient and more comfortable driving

Road transport in Europe today faces enormous challenges. Demand for personal mobility is increasing, and in the meantime imposing a high cost on society. More than 40,000 people die every year and more than 1.2 million are injured on European roads.

 

In addition, transport emissions threaten our health, negatively affect environmental quality and make a significant and growing contribution to climate change. While constant traffic congestion imposes delays and raises costs for every European citizen.

Innovative solutions now needed

High-tech in-vehicle active safety and efficiency technologies represent a great opportunity to improve this situation. Such technologies, which for the most part are already in existence, have the ability to help drivers make driving safer, more comfortable and more efficient.

 

Their potential to bring a positive impact to traffic safety and efficiency is well recognised. Yet these technologies have not penetrated the market, largely due to a lack of understanding about the potential benefits to driving behaviour and hence to quality of life. Now is the time to get these technologies into the market and better understood.

 

The euroFOT project, by testing and assessing the performance of eight key functions on European roads, should contribute to the market introduction of and wider uptake for such intelligent vehicle systems.

European competitiveness – Lisbon objectives

euroFOT is an EU research project under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for research and technological development. It is particularly relevant to the European Commission White paper “European Road Safety Action Programme 2011-2020”, which was published in 2001 targeting a 50% reduction of fatalities on European roads by 2010.

 

Intelligent vehicle systems (IVS) have been the subject of significant research and development in Europe in recent years. This has created a world leadership of European industries in the sector, enabling automotive manufacturers and systems suppliers to introduce advanced driver assistance functions into the market based on robust sensors and smart vehicle controls.

 

Several brands of passenger cars can now be equipped with the option of intelligent vehicle systems. Large commercial vehicles such as buses and trucks also benefit from these systems, and the driver-support functions are likely to be particularly valuable for professional drivers travelling long distances.

 

euroFOT is expected to boost the competitiveness of this IVS industry, as one of the main objectives of the project is to create early publicity for these innovative technologies, and thus to boost market penetration.

Safer, smarter and greener cars

Road safety, energy efficiency and traffic congestion are the main challenges currently facing European transportation, according to the Intelligent Car Initiative (ICI) launched by the European Commission in 2006. The report, which won wide approval in the European Parliament in 2008, calls for more efforts from industry to promote ICT-based solutions in transport.

 

In this context, euroFOT aims to demonstrate the effectiveness and encourage the deployment of intelligent vehicle systems on European roads. The results should help boost the take up of intelligent vehicle technologies in new cars and trucks by raising the visibility of their contribution to better driving.