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Activities described in this paper concern the development of a newly urban transport solution which involves the revamping of electric bus and related fast-charge pantograph infrastructure. The sizing of the vehicle storage system in based on recorder mission profile and consumption acquired during real word testing, both in the real application scenarios and simulation environments. Optimal design relay on 5 Degree of Freedom vehicle model, for the purpose of estimating average consumption. These in formations are also useful to establish the size for the power and energy of the recharge infrastructures, which is equipped with flywheel inertial accumulators. Results show the accuracy of the developed model by comparing real and estimated energy consumption for several drive cycles, also concerning the effective route for the investigate bus line in the urban transport context.

Driverless buses running in urban low-speed, mixed-traffic conditions are the subject of current research and demonstration in Europe. The paper aims to assess how automation fares with respect to conventional services in terms of users' attitudes. Stated preference data, based on a questionnaire administered in twelve cities, are used for the estimation of logit models providing preference shares for the conventional and the automated bus. The correlation among errors in repeated measurement data is tackled using a multivariate version of the Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern copula, yielding a closed form for the choice sequence probability. Estimation results show a relatively higher preference for automation across the cities where the automated bus is implemented inside a major facility. Without provision of information on how the system works and with no experience, users tend not to trust automation in the normal mixed-traffic conditions that are found in cities. The impacts of socio-economic variables are heterogenous across cities. Comparison between the logit based on the independence assumption and the logit with correlated observations shows deviations in coefficient estimates as large as twenty per cent with a typical sample size of about two hundred respondents and four choice tasks per individual. Deviations decrease to few percentage points when sample size is tripled. Deviations in preference shares are, however, negligible, a result which, in terms of policy implications, is indicative of the validity of the independence assumption in applied work.

International audience; The CityMobil project seeks to improve the urban mobility by studying the impact of Advanced City Cars, PRT and Cybercars in different European cities. Three cities will host large-scale demonstrators, and a second group of cities will host showcases, city-studies and pilot demonstrations. Since the number of cities having shown interest in Cybernetic Transportation Systems (CTS) is significant, a selection process was necessary. This paper deals with the methodology applied to select the cities where the research activities will be conducted. Finally, we present an initial typology of the sites and applications of CTS based on the sites presented by the candidate cities.

Rail is today a minimally used modality in urban freight distribution. To reap the benefits of this more sustainable transport mode a few experiences in Europe have attempted to introduce innovative freight distribution schemes where rail is used. One of such schemes uses rail for the urban penetration leg. After having been consolidated in a centre located outside the urban area, goods are transported by shuttle trains to a centre located inside the central area (the multi-modal urban distribution centre – MUDC) and there are transferred to low-pollution road vehicles to reach their final destination. Other schemes use tramways. The paper provides a review of rail-based schemes which have been introduced in European cities. An in-depth assessment is provided of the scheme based on the use of a MUDC. The case study relates to the distribution of fish food in Rome. The environmental and energy benefits obtainable from the shift from the current road-only scheme to the MUDC scheme are estimated in physical and monetary units. An estimate is provided of the maximum public contribution that would still make the scheme beneficial for society as a whole, obtained as the difference between the social costs of the road-only scheme and those of the MUDC scheme. Also, an assessment is provided of the profitability of the scheme from the operators‟ viewpoint.

CATS is a collaborative European project promoting driverless vehicles that ended in December 2014. This contribution explains how the project evolved, including the handling of unexpected events and concentrating on lessons learned. The constructor and vehicle had to be changed for economic reasons in the middle of the project timeline. A second constructor went bankrupt, although access to his vehicles could be secured. For security and legal reasons, part of the final demonstration was relocated at short notice to the EPFL campus in Lausanne, Switzerland, where around 1600 people were transported during 16 days of vehicle operation. Reactions to the driverless vehicle concept were overwhelmingly positive. Implications for the acceptability of driverless vehicles in Europe and elsewhere are discussed.

At the conference "Flexible Europe - Mobility as a tool for enhancing research capacity" (Tallinn, Estonia, 19 - 20 September 2002 - http://www2.archimedes.ee/mobility/) the European Commission presented a first outline of their new ‘pan-European Researcher’s Mobility Portal’. The Marie Curie Fellowship Association (MCFA) was invited to provide comments and suggestions for the development of the portal. Based on input from a large number of MCFA members, a document with recommendations was drawn up, which was discussed with representatives from DG RTD, Directorate D: ‘The Human Factor, Mobility and Marie Curie Actions’, at a meeting in Brussels in December 2002. The document addresses the following topics: I. General Set-up of the Portal II. Information on Grants, Fellowships, Job Offers and similar III. Practical Information IV. European Science and Research Policy V. Discussion Area VI. Language of the Portal VII. Securing the Quality of the Information provided on the Portal VIII. Obtaining the Information to be displayed on the Portal IX. Other Comments on the Portal X. The Mobility Centers