Towards Road Transport Automation: Opportunities in Public–Private Collaboration. Summary of the Third EU-U.S. Transportation Research Symposium

This document summarizes the symposium, Towards Road Transport Automation: Opportunities in Public–Private Collaboration, which was held April 14-15, 2015, in Washington, D.C. This symposium was the third in a series of four annual symposia sponsored by the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Transportation and organized by the Transportation Research Board (TRB). The goals of the symposia were to promote common understanding, efficiencies, and transatlantic cooperation within the international transportation research community while accelerating transport-sector innovation in the European Union and the United States. The two-day, invitation-only symposium brought together high-level experts to share their views on the future of surface transport automation from the technological and socioeconomic perspectives. Participants came from public agencies, the automotive and technology industries, academia, consulting firms, and other groups key to implementation of road transport automation. The symposium began with a keynote presentation on realizing self-driving cars. Summaries of two commissioned white papers on road transport automation as a public–private enterprise and as a societal change agent were also presented in the opening session. For each of three use case scenarios, members of the planning committee summarized the key elements of the scenario. Participants then broke into groups to discuss opportunities, barriers, and potential research topics. Reporters for each breakout group summarized the key discussion points in a general session. The symposium concluded with closing comments from EU, U.S. Department of Transportation, and TRB representatives.