The partners in the AVENUE Project announce that the winding-up of the project will be celebrated at a closure event organized by Navya, Keolis and the University of Geneva.
AVENUE is an anagram of “Autonomous Vehicles to Evolve to a New Urban Experience” and forms part of the European Union’s research and innovation Horizon 2020 funding program. It has been one of the EU’s most advanced and ambitious projects in the field of autonomous mobility, with the objective of setting up and conducting large scale trials of autonomous vehicles in urban centers and connecting them with existing public transportation networks.
The closure event will take place on October 20th, 2022 from 10 am to 3.30 pm at the Groupama Stadium at Décines-Charpieu near Lyon, and will bring together a large number of public and private players from the fields of mobility and transportation.
It will be an opportunity for the AVENUE partners to present the technological progress they have made over four years’ collaboration and the many successful deployments of on-demand autonomous public transportation services.
Thirteen Navya Autonom were rolled out in eight European towns and cities – Lyon, Geneva, Luxembourg, Copenhagen, Esch-sur-Alzette and Uvrier – and transported 60,000 passengers over more than 80,000 km.
The closure event will also be an opportunity to emphasize the role of autonomous shuttles within existing transportation networks and to evaluate the state of the art of autonomous mobility in Europe.
Dimitri Konstantas, Coordinator of the AVENUE Project, will open the ceremony by saying a few words. This will be followed by a number of keynote speeches, presentations and round table discussions.
The attendees will be able to test one of the key functions of the project – transportation on demand – on one of the two self-driving shuttles which will connect the tram station to the Groupama Stadium, home of Olympique Lyonnais football club.
Clément Aubourg, Autonomous Vehicles Manager, Keolis: “For the last six years we have been conducting trials on autonomous shuttles in Lyon, and indeed the rest of the world, which has enabled us to take autonomous technology to a higher level. We and our partner OEMs are now in a position to offer this kind of service, not only on roads where the conditions are more complex, but also alongside and in conjunction with other modes of transportation. This multimodality is exactly what we want to push in cities like Lyon, so that its users can benefit from a service that complements the existing one.”
Dimitri Konstantas, University of Geneva: “Urban mobility is becoming one of the most serious problems in the daily life of our towns and cities, with too many cars on the roads, high pollution levels and traffic jams. The only solution is seems to be the transition from private cars to public transportation, but this will only happen if we are able to provide people with the same facility and simplicity they are used to. The AVENUE Project has demonstrated that on-demand, door-to-door public transportation based on autonomous vehicles is the most promising solution to our urban mobility problems. AVENUE has enabled us to deploy probably the world’s first real public transportation service using fully autonomous vehicles, which takes into account the whole range of related issues, from the technology to its socio-economic and environmental impact, and which opens the door to large scale deployments in the near future.”
Sophie Desormière, CEO of Navya: “At its launch in 2018, the AVENUE Project was a first for Europe and a means of demonstrating the amazing advantages of autonomous mobility. It enabled us to make technological progress and to prove beyond doubt that Nayva’s autonomous shuttles could be integrated into the public transportation system. Our partners contributed a large number of new functions and services, including the on-demand, door-to-door function which is managed from a smartphone. Along with our partners in the AVENUE Project, we have proved that sustainable and shared autonomous mobility can be created and rolled out in the heart of Europe.”