Automated driving and smart mobility services

Vehicle manufacturers, authorities, cities, and service operators all around the world look for ways to reduce transport emissions and improve performance and safety. However, with the rapid expansion of available data and developing technologies, finding and choosing the best solutions can be difficult. 

VTT helps companies and public sector organisations around the world to capture the benefits of new connected and automated driving technologies and smart mobility services. Depending on your current needs, we can either help you to begin your company’s journey toward a smarter transport solution by identifying relevant opportunities or support you in the later stages of automation projects. There we provide software IP related to automation functions, targeted technical validation, safety analysis, and impartial assessments. We also specialise in transport and mobility impact assessment and foresight.

The amount and availability of traffic data continues to push the transport and mobility industry forward. Modern systems are typically safer, more user-friendly, and commercially competitive.

Humans excel at problem solving and creative thinking but often perform poorly at repetitive tasks. This is where automation can offer improved performance, safety, comfort, and cost-efficiency. We help our customers develop, test, and validate suitable solutions for their specific needs and operating environments.

Suitable applications for automated driving restricted environments include factories, production sites, airport ground services and harbours, where routes are repetitive and the environment restricted.

At VTT, we have experience working with companies from different industries to design and implement automated driving solutions that best support the individual needs of each customer. We can provide our customers with both strategic business insight and the technological expertise to guide them from an initial challenge to a functioning solution. For example, by prototyping what changes would need to be made to existing vehicles, we can help rapidly demonstrating the viability and value of these solutions, and identify and respond to potential risks. We have also wide library of existing sensor data processing and automated driving solutions coded with C, C++ and Python which can be licensed for shortening companies time-to-market with their products.

In addition to the self-driving vehicles suitable for closed environments, different elements and capabilities of autonomous driving can be implemented in varying operating environments, creating safer and more efficient services. VTT’s solutions may extend usage of vehicles in varying weather condition and so-called edge cases by extending ODDs beyond the normal limits.

Full autonomy of vehicles is not necessary but experiment driven human-centred design is.

With the growing amount and availability of traffic data, different automation capabilities can be designed and implemented for road, rail, sea, or air transport, including the use of drones. 

At VTT, we can come up with scenarios to illustrate alternative service and business models. We support industry and public decision making in the transport sector with impact assessment and future-oriented knowledge on the dynamics of the transport system.  We specialise in developing methodologies and tools for evaluating impacts of measures such as new technologies, technological systems, services and policy instruments. We carry out impact assessments from social, technological and economic perspectives. 

As new service models are constantly being rolled out, vehicle manufacturers and service providers focus increasingly on safety and user-friendliness of logistics and transport systems.

Our human-centred engineering and service design specialists excel at safety-critical systems and have a user-driven approach. Our services also make it easier to demonstrate the regulatory compliance and public acceptability of new solutions.

Our experience of piloting and testing in inclusive Living Lab environments allows us to test the user-experience of services in real-life scenarios. We have carried out successful testing in Finnish cities including Helsinki and Tampere, and in our customers’ production facilities.

For many of our customers, developing situational awareness solutions for vehicles or traffic management is the natural path towards interoperable systems and higher levels of autonomy. The range of these capabilities and services offers new business opportunities for many industries from logistics and transport. Our customers include vehicle manufacturers and logistics and transport operators.

VTT has extensive experience in vehicle and transport infrastructure sensor systems and data fusion IP to generate an overview of the environment. We have also been working on a control system for autonomous driving in different weather conditions related ODDs. In addition to road transport, we work on connectivity and satellite solutions for space.

We can conduct field testing safely in both closed environments and real-world settings.

At VTT we have access to three specially equipped cars as well as a bus for automated driving research and experiments. We can conduct field testing safely in both closed environments and on public roads. In addition, we are able repeat  the test cases in simulated environment. Our sensing technology experts can also deliver customised solutions and algorithms for licensing. 

Our ICT experts specialise in solutions that enable vehicle and backend systems to communicate and exchange data. We can also support our customers by developing software IP that can help them advance their smart mobility solutions. We also have a strong expertise in cybersecurity, including quantum-safe cryptography, and can deliver safe and tested solutions to our customers.

Smart mobility services provide tools to make the transformation of the transport system more sustainable, cost-efficient, and user-friendly.

New transportation services respond to different challenges in different environments. With mobility as a service (MaaS) solutions, city-dwellers in densely populated urban areas can gain access to more agile last-mile-services, or seamlessly combine different modes of transport to increase the reliability and convenience of public transport. In rural environments, where distances can be long and services scarce, smart features can help accurately target services where they are needed. New types of mobility services can also reduce reliance on private cars, and – through car-share schemes – reduce the time they simply stand idle in parking lots. Mobility services can also be integrated with additional services making the service more attractive than ordinary MaaS.

A well-functioning and sustainable transport system can boost the well-being and prosperity of both the city and its inhabitants.

At VTT, we help service providers to identify and implement smart mobility solutions that best respond to users’ needs and do it in a way that is economically feasible. A well-functioning and sustainable transport system can boost the well-being and prosperity of both the city and its inhabitants. 

We have experience in supporting cities in mobility services procurement. We help our customers navigate both regulatory requirements and technical testing and standardization to ensure that the procurement and implementation of new services and systems is safe, compliant and efficient. Living labs and ecosystem-based co-creation are effective means in developing and testing innovative solutions. We also specialise in transport and mobility impact assessment and foresight.