Smart City Expo World Congress Barcelona 2024

I think recently we have had a new directive from the European Commission that is regulating, you know that we have different levels of automation.
When we talk about full autonomy, that's we've not having a driver.
We are talking about level four and five, but still we have way to go.
And we have many systems that are giving more security to cars that we name ADAS system.
Now, the regulation is, implementing a new regulation.
That means that the new cars that will be sell in Europe will need to have ADAS systems, you know, like automatic braking system, you know, camera devices to prevent accidents.
But, in this regulation, for the first time, we start to regulate the level four and level five cars.
This is a full autonomy.
This is where you don't have a driver, okay.
That means that the the framework is already there.
And we also see some countries that are many advance on regulating themselves of adopting this technology.
Like for example Germany, UK, we have also Norway.
And these countries are advancing on innovative regulation to start adopting and testing, in public roads, the use of autonomous mobility.
Not only the US I think we what we have seen is, big advance in US and in China.
There are already new companies, that, normally are companies that develop software, you know, and, like, for example, the case of Google with their company Waymo.
And they have advanced a lot on the technology.
The technology is almost ready to deploy.
I mean, they already start to commercialize service based on autonomous mobility.
That's what you have in San Francisco, L.A.
Dallas, there are many cities, like six cities in the US that are already operating autonomous vehicles?
Just San Francisco, you can imagine that there are 33 companies developing technology for autonomous mobility for passengers.
But trucks or for example, delivery.
Yeah.
And there are six companies already operating in public roads without driver.
With license to operate in San Francisco, that means that technology is advancing fast.
That means that, if we compare Europe with the US, they are already deploying the technology, but what they are doing, basically, they are replacing taxis.
Okay.
Yeah.
What we are doing in Europe is different.
And we see some pilots in Europe where we are, for example installing this technology into busses.
Because we see a lot of potential on automatizing busses.
In Europe we have a problem that is lack of drivers.
You know, there are shortage of drivers already.
That means that, for companies there are difficult to operate lines.
That means that if we go to our autonomy, we don't have drivers.
That means that we can operate, maybe also with more safety, this is the difference between the US is going to deploy these, to try to cannibalize public transport sometimes.
What we are doing in Europe is different.
We want to integrate in public transport.
We believe in public transport.
I think that's the way that we want to support the adoption of autonomous mobility.
And then I want to compare with China.
You know, in China there are many companies that they didn't exist two years ago.
You know, they have already the technology and they are deploying the technology.
One of the difference between between China and US, is the investment, they invest much more money that we invest.
That means if we want to speed up this adoption.
We will need to invest a lot of money.
Yeah, but the thing is that, I mean, also the public authorities, the national governments,, they have problems on investing so much money.
That means that will require, a complete different approach.
That means that the private sector and the, so the investors, they will need to invest.
And what we are discussing, at EIT Urban Mobility, we have that session with many players is that we need to find, I mean, this market, this future market, we see a trend that, many cities will adopt autonomous mobility because they will have a lot of benefit.
This market.
What if we want to speed up, one thing is investment.
And the other thing is the that we need to have a scale.
A bigger scale.
Yeah.
Because, it is not just to pilot, in a neighborhood.
Yeah.
It's a scaling we need to test in a big city.
And if we can do it in a coalition of cities, I mean, that 3 or 4 cities are testiong at the same time, and we learn one from each other.
I think the the speed of the adoption will be much faster.
And that's why we're proposing at EIT Urban Mobility.
We are now listening to many public transport operators that they come to us and they say, yeah, we have plans to integrate it, but they don't know how to do it.
And we say, okay, let's work together.
The main difference that I see is that, basically in the US, I mean, they have a national government, that regulate they are we, they have the states that they have their own regulation.
And it is similar to what we have in our national governments.
But the problem is that in he US, the city has nothing to do with the regulation.
And that means that they need to basically they need to allow these cars to run into the city.
They can push some restrictions, you know.
Yes.
Put in signals, but there's not so much I think that's different for Europe.
And I think yeah, when we develop our regulation we need to take, integrate, you know, the city.
And also the, the city will need to adapt this into the transport system.
That means that maybe it will take more time for us to do it.
But, in the end, what we want to improve is that, everyone has accessibility.
You know, we reduce the number of cars in cities.
That's the way that we are promoting mobility in cities now, we don't want to have.
I mean, you maybe you have seen this dream of Elon Musk who say that everyone has an autonomous vehicle.
You can imagine traffic jams with autonomous mobility, people looking Netflix in the cars, but with traffic jams.
I prefer to see, Netflix at home.
Arrive on time.
And not from my car.
I think this is a different dream that we have in in Europe.
Already we are from front runners on integrating in busses.
Now we have companies testing, different pilots in Europe.
Fully operating.
Yeah.
With a speed of 78km/h.
That means that, I see a lot of advances on this business, especially for Europe.
Yeah.
What we are behind.
Maybe it's more, I will say on, the business model that Google is proposing, I will say that's vehicles like taxis, you know, autonomous.
But I think, the problem is not the technology.
Maybe we need to cooperate with Chinese and American companies To integrate it in our busses, in our vans, in our delivery, devices in the city.
But, I think the question is how how we are doing that, and I think that's where we need to, with regulation you can already support the good integration of these solutions.
As we always say, we are in, in an event of smart city,. we like technology, but the technology is not something that should drive our cities.
It should support the integration of solutions, but is not the, the main driver.