New designs, shapes, functionalities of Light Commercial Vehicles (2ZERO Partnership)

The focus will be to identify and overcome the main barriers for the development of new LCV concepts for urban and sub-urban logistics and freight mobility. Proposals are expected to address all of the following aspects:

• Engage with users of the vehicles, define requirements, expectations and potential developments that may influence future demand for these vehicles as well as considering the integration of vehicles in existing and future charging infrastructures.
• Develop and demonstrate new designs, shapes and functionalities of Light Commercial Vehicles to meet current and future needs for commercial delivery of goods, including safety aspects.
• Demonstrate the developed vehicles and operational concepts considering current and future demands for these vehicles in a growing e-commerce market for deliveries and returns of parcels, groceries and refrigerated goods and addressing the challenges holistically (i.e. by demonstrating the concepts in actual current or new logistics operations including charging and addressing requirements in cities with extended zero emission zones).
• Establish synergies and links with new logistics concepts developed in R&I projects focused on logistics operations and innovative concepts (such as the Physical Internet).
• Demonstrated vehicles and operational concepts are expected to target important markets with the potential for the largest environmental impact.
• Optionally and additionally, concepts for demonstration of the combined usage of people and freight vehicle operation, fleet utilisation optimisation in dense-urban areas might be included.
• Development of appropriate operational and control strategies during acceleration and braking to reduce secondary brake and tyre particle emissions, optimise energy recuperation and further reduce environmental impact in urban environments.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

Destination

Clean and competitive solutions for all transport modes (2023/24)

This Destination addresses activities that improve the climate and environmental footprint, as well as competitiveness, of different transport modes.

The transport sector is responsible for 23% of CO₂ emissions and remains dependent on oil for 92% of its energy demand. While there has been significant technological progress over past decades, projected GHG emissions are not in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement due to the expected increase in transport demand. Intensified research and innovation activities are therefore needed, across all transport modes and in line with societal needs and preferences, in order for the EU to reach its policy goals towards a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and to reduce significantly air pollutants.

The areas of rail and air traffic management will be addressed through dedicated Institutional European Partnerships and are therefore not included in this document.

This Destination contributes to the following Strategic Plan’s Key Strategic Orientations (KSO):

• C: Making Europe the first digitally enabled circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy through the transformation of its mobility, energy, construction and production systems;
• A: Promoting an open strategic autonomy[[ ‘Open strategic autonomy’ refers to the term ‘strategic autonomy while preserving an open economy’, as reflected in the conclusions of the European Council 1 – 2 October 2020.]] by leading the development of key digital, enabling and emerging technologies, sectors and value chains to accelerate and steer the digital and green transitions through human-centred technologies and innovations.

It covers the following impact areas:

• Industrial leadership in key and emerging technologies that work for people;
• Smart and sustainable transport.

The expected impact, in line with the Strategic Plan, is to contribute “Towards climate-neutral and environmental friendly mobility through clean solutions across all transport modes while increasing global competitiveness of the EU transport sector“, notably through:

• Transforming road transport to zero-emission mobility through a world-class European research and innovation and industrial system, ensuring that Europe remains world leader in innovation, production and services in relation to road transport (more detailed information below).
• Accelerating the reduction of all aviation impacts and emissions (CO₂ and non-CO₂, including manufacturing and end-of-life, noise), developing aircraft technologies for deep reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and maintaining European aero-industry’s global leadership position (more detailed information below).
• Accelerate the development and prepare the deployment of climate neutral and clean solutions in the inland and marine shipping sector, reduce its environmental impact (on biodiversity, noise, pollution and waste management), improve its system efficiency, leverage digital and EU satellite-navigation solutions and contribute to the competitiveness of the European waterborne sector (more detailed information below).
• Devising more effective ways for reducing emissions and their impacts through improved scientific knowledge (more detailed information below).

Several levels of interactions are foreseen with other European initiatives, in particular with the Industrial Battery Value Chain (BATT4EU) partnership, the Cooperative Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) partnership and the Mission on Climate Neutral and Smart Cities, in particular:

• Joint topic “2ZERO – BATT4EU” D5-1-4 B – Innovative battery management systems for next generation vehicles (2ZERO & Batteries Partnership) (2023)
• Joint topic “CCAM – 2ZERO – Mission on Climate Neutral and Smart Cities” D5-1-5 Co-designed smart systems and services for user-centred shared zero-emission mobility of people and goods in urban areas (2ZERO, CCAM and Cities’ Mission) (2023)