The potential of digital technologies and related business models in road transport is significant, and so is the need to act. The steady and positive trend in road safety that the EU has seen over the last decade has slowed down. Road transport is still responsible for the bulk of transport emissions, in terms of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Every day, congested roads are a huge cost to the EU economy. With the jobs of millions of Europeans depending directly or indirectly on the automotive and transport industry, it is critical that the sector be provided with the conditions to stay in the lead globally.

This Communication is thus closely linked to the Commission's political priorities, notably its Agenda for Jobs, Growth and Investment, the Digital Single Market and the Energy Union Strategy. The European Strategy for Low-Emission Mobility adopted in July 2016, highlights the potential of cooperative, connected and automated vehicles to reduce energy consumption and emissions from transport. The Digitising European Industry Strategy identifies cooperative, connected and automated vehicles as a priority topic for boosting the competitiveness of European industry. Studies have estimated the market potential of cooperative, connected and automated driving to be worth dozens of billions of euro annually and the creation of jobs could run into the hundreds of thousands.

In many respects today's vehicles are already connected devices. However, in the very near future they will also interact directly with each other and with the road infrastructure. This interaction is the domain of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), which will allow road users and traffic managers to share and use information previously not available and to coordinate their actions. This cooperative element – enabled by digital connectivity – is expected to significantly improve road safety, traffic efficiency and comfort of driving, by helping the driver to take the right decisions and adapt to the traffic situation.

Communication between vehicles, infrastructure and with other road users is crucial also to increase the safety of automated vehicles and their full integration into the overall transport system. Cooperation, connectivity, and automation are not only complementary technologies, they reinforce each other and will over time merge completely. Truck platooning (trucks communicating to automatically and safely follow each other at very short distance) is a good example: connectivity, cooperation and automation must all come together to make it work. But even more so will cooperation be needed when future automated vehicles have to negotiate much more complex traffic situations safely and efficiently.

Countries around the world (e.g. US, Australia, Japan, Korea and China) are moving rapidly towards deploying digital technologies, and in some countries vehicles and C-ITS services are already available on the market. G7 transport ministers have repeatedly underlined the need for action. Several Member States have started C-ITS deployment activities under real life conditions through strategic alliances such as the EU cooperative corridor linking Rotterdam to Frankfurt and Vienna, or the Amsterdam Group. The Space Strategy for Europe underlines the need to encourage integrating space technologies into strategies addressing connected cars, whilst benefiting in particular from the use of GALILEO and EGNOS.
In the Declaration of Amsterdam in April 2016, European transport ministers urged the European Commission to develop a European strategy on cooperative, connected and automated vehicles. Equally importantly, industry stated its intention to start full scale deployment of C-ITS enabled vehicles in 2019. But for this to happen, coordination is urgently needed at European level.

With technology rapidly evolving and the public and private sector investing substantial amounts into developing and testing C-ITS technologies, there is a risk that, without a framework at European level, EU-wide interoperability will not be achieved on time. This would put European industry at a disadvantage to its competitors and delay the deployment of C-ITS in Europe, and with it the multiple benefits for transport and society at large.

This Communication presents an EU strategy for the coordinated deployment of C-ITS in order to avoid a fragmented internal market in the field of C-ITS and create synergies between different initiatives. It addresses the most critical issues, including cyber-security and data protection (both particularly important for public acceptance) and interoperability and recommends action at different levels to meet the 2019 target date. This Communication thereby constitutes an important milestone of an EU strategy on cooperative, connected and automated vehicles.