The COST Action CA16222 on “Wider Impacts and Scenario Evaluation of Autonomous and Connected Transport” (WISE-ACT) had its kick-off on 13 October 2017 in Brussels. The Action participation has grown since then, and today counts 35 COST Countries plus the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

The focus of this COST Action is on observed and anticipated future mobility trends and implications on travel behaviour, namely car sharing, travel time use or residential location choice, to name a few. Other important issues to be explored under different deployment scenarios are social, ethical, institutional and business impacts.

The ERAdiate team contributed significantly to the establishment of the Action from the very beginning: as a matter of fact, the main proposer of the Action was one of keynote speakers of the international conference “ITS: a Tool or a Toy?” organised by ERAdiate in Žilina in November 2016. Slovakia joined the Action shortly after its approval and nominated Dr. Giuseppe Lugano and Dr. Ghadir Pourhashem as the Slovak representatives.

In addition to represent the country, Dr. Lugano and Dr. Pourhashem will be involved in the Working Group 2 dealing with “Social Challenges”. One of the challenges is about understanding the value of travel time under a scenario of autonomous and connected driving. In this respect, the Action will benefit from the knowledge generated within the context of the H2020 project “Mobility and Time Value” (MoTiV), which is coordinated by the ERAdiate team.

At the kick-off meeting, Dr. Lugano was appointed as Science Communication Manager to contribute to visibility and dissemination activities.

The composition of the Action is highly interdisciplinary and the planned activities ambitious and with possible significant impact in Europe. The Action will certainly offer many opportunities to participants from Slovakia in general and UNIZA in particular to get involved in this timely ad relevant Action, for instance by getting involved in Working Groups and participating in Action workshops/conferences, as well as training schools and short-term scientific missions.

Action web-site: http://www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/ca/CA16222

To get involved in the Action, please contact Dr. Lugano and Dr. Pourhashem.