Automated and connected vehicles give hope to politics and business: They are expected to make traffic safer and more efficient in the future and thus contribute to the traffic turnaround. A study by researchers from the Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Planning (involving the future.lab Research Center, Local Spatial Planning, Sociology and Transportation System Planning), funded by the Daimler and Benz Foundation, now shows that some of these hopes must be put into perspective.

The most comprehensive study to date on the effects of automated and connected vehicles on cities, mobility and society has just been published as the book "AVENUE21. Automated and networked transport: developments in urban Europe" , opens an external URL in a new windowpublished by Springer Vieweg as an open access publication.

Contrary to many other studies, streets are not only considered as a traffic space, but also as a place of public life. This perspective allows a re-evaluation of central effects - especially concerning the near future.

More than three hundred international experts were interviewed for the study. In focus groups, scenarios were developed that illustrate possibilities for local shaping. Finally, fields of action are developed that should be addressed from the perspective of urban and mobility planning in the next 5-10 years.