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Besides passenger mobility, the EU’s smart mobility strategy also includes intermodal and intelligent cargo, meaning that goods become self-, context- and location-aware as well as connected to a wide range of information logistics services incorporating navigation systems, digital tachographs and tolling systems. The European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program recently funded a swappable container marine transport battery called Current Direct. This program plans to revolutionize the marine transport of cargo. Current Direct will also provide an opportunity for energy companies, institutional investors, and even government stakeholders from across Europe’s marine electrification value chain to join in the green transformation of Europe’s merchant and passenger fleet. The fact that the United Kingdom, while no longer a part of the EU, is investing in nine new 5G test beds to support ports logistics illustrates the overall government trends and funding commitments towards this segment of the smart mobility transformation in Europe.
European Union
References
First Innovation Fund call for large-scale projects: 311 applications for the EUR 1 billion EU funding for clean tech projects.
Innovation Fund
EU Emission Trading System
Horizon 2020 Smart, Green and Integrated Transport
Developing Horizon Europe
Hydrogen fuel cell train to be developed with EU funding
ENSEMBLE: ENabling SafE Multi-Brand pLatooning for Europe
Making multibrand, cross border Platooning a reality
There are some problems facing U.S. stakeholders wishing to participate in these EU-funded research and innovation programs, as noted in this article: “Tale of two cities: Brussels and Washington struggle to cooperate in science ‘Devil in the details’ when US and European researchers try to work together under Horizon 2020.” The U.S. Department of State is coordinating with other interagency partners, including the U.S. Department of Commerce, to resolve issues related to the EU's framework programs for research and innovation (presently Horizon Europe) at the earliest possible opportunity.
In the meantime, there are two smart mobility collaborative projects led by the U. S. Department of Transportation on the U.S. side that companies might want to engage with: CARMA and VOICES. The CARMA Program is developing research tracks that explore traffic, reliability, and freight operations scenarios. The research tracks will encourage stakeholder collaboration to accelerate the development, testing, and deployment of cooperative driving automation (CDA). The VOICES program, Virtual Open Innovation Collaborative Environment for Safety (VOICES) is a joint effort of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Defense. Through the VOICES project, the USDOT intends to seed a platform designed to facilitate collaborative research, development, and testing, while protecting intellectual property (IP), among diverse stakeholders engaged in the design, build, test, and evaluation of the safety, performance, and interoperability of transportation automation and connectivity technologies that could significantly improve the safety,