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ART-Forum: Automated Road Transport Forum for the North Sea Region

The technological development towards automated transport is fast. It is likely that automated road transport (ART) will change spatial development and the transport system in the North Sea Region and beyond in a fundamental way. Currently, much enabling of technological developments and test applications of automated vehicles can be observed but little guidance is being provided for public authorities on how to deal with these new technologies, particularly in their sustainable mobility plans, street design and regional development plans. In addition, not every aspect of the technology development can accepted as positive. Therefore, it is necessary to better involve and build the knowledge base of public authorities – enabling them to raise their voices in the development of new framework settings for this technology.

Project

ART-Forum will create a debating ground for local/regional authorities in the NSR, address risks and opportunities and help guide policy development with regard to the impact that automated transport could have on the entire road transport system and life in cities and regions in the NSR. A transnational approach is required as the onset of ART will pose a similar challenge for cities and regions across Europe and a joint public dialog and development of sound policy frameworks can help spread lessons learned and prepare other communities for this game changing technological development more rapidly than any one organisation could accomplish alone.

The DLR-Institute of Transport Research leads the work package on Impact Evaluation and Scenario Development aiming at the assessment of current developments, as well as on scenario building with qualitative and quantitative methodologies that engage stakeholders from various levels (citizens, planners, policy makers, businesses) across the programme area. Together with the DLR-Institute of Transportation Systems, DLR will contribute to the objective of engaging stakeholders in a dialogue on impacts of ART. Aside from the first order effects like travel behaviour, traffic volume/flow, DLR will pay particular attention to building knowledge on second order effects on the build environment like parking space requirements, street design and land use. DLR will contextualise this knowledge for the involved cities and participate in developing roadmaps for long-term transport and urban planning strategies.

Objectives

The overall objective of the ART-Forum project is to raise awareness among public stakeholders and develop policy recommendations that enable local and regional authorities to take advantage of the opportunities of automated road transport in order to support sustainable transport and territorial development goals as well as improve the quality of life in communities.

The DLR institutes will contribute their expertise to these goals with the following activities:

• The DLR institutes will hold an international workshop with municipalities and consultants from partner countries to define constraints and conditions for a future transport system from a municipal perspective
• Based on these outcomes a future transport system will be derived with quantifiable and defined parameters (e.g. in terms of traffic volume, infrastructure (e.g. parking spaces, design of cross-sections), transport modes and services, etc.)
• DLR will hold three explorative and participatory workshops (e.g. with co-creation elements) with representatives of all relevant stakeholder groups (e.g. public authorities, NGOs, transport operators, citizens, etc.) to identify requirements and needs when it comes to the identified transport system (see previous activity) as well as still hypothetical requirements, threats and opportunities and ideas regarding the build environment (e.g. street design, parking space requirements, etc.)?
• DLR will develop a concept for transferring qualitative transport research results into parameters for transport modelling and applying the concept to the outcomes of the workshops
• Simulating the traffic impact taking into account the evaluation criteria and reflecting the results with the project partner in order to derive policy recommendations

Contracting Entity

The project is funded by the European Union under the INTERREG North Sea Region Programme.

Project Parnter

• City of Bremen
• City of Mechelen
• City of Bergen
• City of Aalborg
• Province of Groningen
• West Yorkshire Combined Authority
• Robert Gordon University
• Aalborg University
• German Aerospace Center - Institute of Transport Research
• German Aerospace Center - Institute of Transportation Systems
• Bremerhaven Bus
• Autodelen.net
• Taxistop
• Mobile Times

Project Duration

03/2019 to 02/2022