New EU project RemoteReadyMove to advance safe automated mobility and greater passenger acceptance
UITP is proud to be part of a new project, RemoteReadyMove, which is now under way to advance the technical and societal readiness of remote operation in connected, cooperative and automated mobility (CCAM) services for both people and goods.
The project runs for three years, from June 2026 to May 2029, and is coordinated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), with UITP among its 14 partners from Germany, Sweden, France, Greece, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the UK.
CCAM sits at the heart of Europe’s Road Transport Vision 2050, one of two pillars, alongside energy efficient and zero emission technologies, expected to deliver seamless, safe and sustainable mobility for people and goods.
That vision answers a demanding set of pressures on European road transport: climate change, pollution and congestion, road casualties, affordability, demographic change, limited resources and an uncertain social, political and economic outlook.
Reaching high levels of automation, connectivity, and AI does not rest on the vehicle alone. It also depends on connected infrastructure, AI and backend systems, the passengers and other road users sharing the space, and on a dependable way for a human operator to step in from a distance, through remote assistance or remote driving, when an automated vehicle reaches the limits of what it can manage by itself.
That distinction matters in practice. Remote assistance covers situations where the vehicle remains in control but needs a human decision it cannot take on its own, such as how to deal with an unexpected roadworks layout or a blocked lane.
Remote driving goes further, with an operator taking over the driving task from a control centre. Both rely on stable connectivity, on interfaces that give the operator enough situational awareness to act well, and on clear rules about who is responsible for what.
Between them they form the layer that allows SAE Level 4 (L4) automated driving systems to run in service without a member of staff on board every vehicle, which is one of the conditions for operating such services at a realistic cost.
RemoteReadyMove sets out to build, validate and deploy exactly that: a technological, economically viable and societally ready remote operation framework, designed as a major pillar of future CCAM systems that complements complex and diverse operational design domain (ODDs) for automated vehicles.
The project pairs its technical development with a dedicated societal readiness pilot that runs in parallel across four phases. It opens with modelling of the system of systems and its operational aspects, matched by an assessment of societal needs and their implications.
It then moves into cocreation and technical development, where societal codesign runs alongside the engineering work, and on to joint assessment and evaluation of what has been built. The final phase turns the results into guidelines, standards, a safety assurance framework and policy recommendations, drawing on the lessons learned across the earlier stages.
The approach is grounded in (stakeholder) engagement and Responsible Research and Innovation principles, reflecting the project’s view that societal uptake of remote operation depends on integrating these questions from the outset rather than addressing them once the technology is already built.
The framework will be tested across six pilot sites spanning three types of service: mixed transport of people and goods in Germany, bus/shuttle services in Sweden and France, and robotaxi services in Greece and Spain.
Together, the sites are intended to show how remote operation performs across very different vehicles, passengers, use cases and operating environments, from line-based public transport to on demand services, and to generate evidence that can be compared from one site to the next rather than remaining tied to a single use case.
The project, funded with 5.99 million euro under the EU Horizon programme, brings together industry, public transport operators, research institutes, a federal institution and consulting and network organisations, including DLR, RISE, VTI, the University of Leeds, BAST, EDAG, Rupprecht Consult, Vicomtech, Applus IDIADA, RATP, FIT Consulting, CERTH, PAVE Europe and UITP.
Within the consortium, UITP keeps the project connected to the wider public transport sector, bringing operator and authority perspectives into the work on remote operation and feeding results back out as the pilot’s progress