The FABULOS project is finalised

As the 3 year-long FABULOS project has now come to its close, the project partners look back at the main learnings and recommendations for the future deployment of the different automated mobility solutions developed within the FABULOS project.

One of the main learnings was, that before the FABULOS solutions can be fully commercialised and implemented into the public transport systems, several legislative aspects and technical features need to be improved. Solid political planning and inclusion of all relevant stakeholders from the planning phase onwards was key to the success of the project.

Also, more harmonised and EU-wide regulation is needed to enable implementation of such pilots and the eventual integration of automated transportation in cities. For example, in Estonia a legal framework enabling automated transport is already in place, whereas in Portugal the project was a starting point to launch such legislative process.

– FABULOS has shown that huge technological improvements can be achieved in a relatively short time. But in order to reach this, we had to push the national regulatory bodies to enable the testing and deployment of our robot bus solutions. We also learned that aligning technological developments and appropriate regulations can be challenging, but we are clearly getting there – at least in Europe, summarises FABULOS Coordinator Renske Martijnse-Hartikka.

Furthermore, eventual commercialisation of automated transport is dependent on wider user-acceptance and technological advancement that allows fully automated vehicles in traffic. Overall, user acceptance for driverless vehicles is high and attitudes positive, but the real need for such last-mile transport solution needs further investigation and testing, notably in circumstances without any on-board steward. Also, from a technological point of view 5G networks and technological advancement of features that allow fast and safe travel without a safety driver inside the vehicle is needed in the near future.

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