CARA members are involved from experimentation to the transport operator, including the manufacturers of autonomous shuttles.

The French government announced on 15 December 2020 the publication of its national strategy for the development of automated road mobility 2020-2022. This new strategy, following on from the one published in 2018, aims to encourage the transition from experimentation to the deployment of autonomous mobility solutions for goods and people through support for innovation, a stronger presence in Europe, support for territories and greater visibility of the strategy at national and international level.

With the help of substantial public support (estimated at €300 million over the duration of the 2021-2025 future investment programme), the tools developed should make it possible to address research or prototype projects, experiments, service pilots, impact assessments, and equity investments in operations to create assets linked mainly to data and their exploitation.

Through the France Véhicule Autonome programme, the “Automated Transport of Goods and Logistics” section, led by CARA, aims to bring the industry together and contribute to the development of the regulatory framework for the circulation of autonomous vehicles in conjunction with the French government.

As quoted by Anne-Marie IDRAC (Senior Manager for the development of autonomous vehicles) in SOLUTRANS On Air #1, CARA and its partners have highlighted three families of use cases relevant to automation:

To this end, taking into account the technological maturity of vehicles and driver delegation devices as well as the needs identified, CARA has drawn up a roadmap to achieve its objective: to enable the deployment of goods transport solutions on closed sites and the development of automated transport solutions for the delivery of the last kilometre in city centres under remote surveillance between 2022 and 2024.

Within the CARA ecosystem, several companies are involved in this national strategy for the development of automated road mobility.

In this article we present several of these actors.

We can start with Transpolis which is the only laboratory city in Europe dedicated to sustainable urban mobility and road equipment. This structure has 80 hectares of urban environment on a scale of 1 to reinvent new solutions for urban mobility with strategic partners.

As you can see in this video, autonomous shuttles are now confronting the road world. NAVYA & EASYMILE are two manufacturers of autonomous shuttles. The technology is now ready for the development of autonomous shuttles!

In the context of urban logistics, the problem of the last kilometre is a challenge for the start-up Twinswheel. This Montpellier-based company manufactures droids for factories and cities.

The prospects for autonomous vehicles in the years to come are good. CARA and all of its members have understood the challenges and objectives of this national strategy and will be major players in it!