TransAID Deliverable 9.5: TransAID Final Conference

The TransAID (Transition Areas for Infrastructure-Assisted Driving) project focuses on development and demonstration of infrastructure-assisted traffic management procedures, protocols, and guidelines for smooth coexistence between automated, connected, and conventional vehicles especially at Transition Areas. Main objectives are: - Evaluation and modelling of current automation prototypes and the behaviour of the drivers. - Assessment of the impact of Transition Areas on traffic safety and efficiency. Generate requirements on enhanced traffic management procedures. - Development of infrastructure-assisted management procedures and protocols to control connected, automated, and conventional vehicles at Transition Areas. - Definition of V2X message sets and communication protocols for the cooperation between connected/automated vehicles and the road infrastructure. - Development of procedures to enhance the detection of conventional vehicles and obstacles on the roads and to inform/influence conventional vehicles. - Integration, testing, and evaluation of the TransAID infrastructure-assisted traffic management protocols and procedures in a simulation environment. Validation and demonstration of them by means of real-world prototypes at test sites. - Provision of a guideline/roadmap to stakeholders regarding the requirements on traffic infrastructure and traffic management in order to cope with Transition Areas considering mixed traffic. This Deliverable describes the organisation and main outcome of the TransAID Final Conference. The event was first planned on 1 July 2020 (one full day), in conjunction with IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) FISTS (Forum on Integrated and Sustainable Transportation System) on 30 June to 2 July in Delft, The Netherlands. A Call for Papers was published, and a Special Session on cooperative and automated driving in a transition phase (dedicated for TransAID) was arranged with scientific papers, and invited speakers without papers. Experts in the domain of cooperative and automated driving outside the consortium and public at large were invited. Various dissemination materials were prepared, and promotion activities were conducted. In addition, a demonstration with automated vehicles (from DLR) on a section of public road in the campus of Delft University of Technology was under preparation. Due to COVID-19, the format of the Final Conference was changed. The demonstration had to be cancelled, and the event was held online on 1-2 July 2020 with a different programme by changing moderator and invited speakers. The online event had around 49-63 participants. On Day-1, the Project Officer Georgios Sarros (EC INEA) gave an opening speech. After a brief project introduction given by Julian Schindler (DLR - Project Coordinator), some TransAID partners presented the main technical results of the project, such as modelling and impact assessment of automated vehicles, traffic management procedures for transition areas, connectivity and signalling, and system integration and evaluation approach. Between each presentation a survey was conducted to get the view of the participants on some specific subjects in the domain and to make the online event interactive. During the break, some project videos were shown (which have been published on the project website). The Day-2 online workshop targeted city participants and non-technical issues. The results are detailed in TransAID Deliverable D8.1 Stakeholder consultation report. In general, the final conference was successful, and achieved the main goals. However, an online event could not be as interactive as face-to-face, and there were no effective networking opportunities for participants. The TransAID consortium planned to have demonstration activities in November, but unfortunately both had to be cancelled in the last moment due to the worsened COVID-19 situation. Instead, a video has been prepared.