How Platooning Research Enhances the European Innovation System

Abstract

Maybe we would need a convincing narrative how innovation and our innovation system contribute to societal wealth—a new kind of Adam Smith equivalent. European road transport is part of a wider ecosystem where significantly increasing levels of digitalisation, automation and innovation will re-shape the world as we have known it. Ambitious political agendas to enhance sustainability and to increase transport effectiveness beyond what can be achieved within a fragmented and traditional way of operation have added momentum. Nevertheless, there are significant open issues beyond what road-maps to various futures maintain to know. Management narratives related to innovation and innovation systems have been challenged. This chapter intends to outline some of the elements how this kind of C-ITS-related platooning research has enhanced our shaping and re-framing of new questions and concepts regarding the European innovation system. Even without electronically coupled trucks on European public roads, elements of dynamic capabilities have evolved. On the other hand, it has become obvious how far some stakeholders have fallen behind the knowledge generation in European C-ITS-related projects. By means of rather selective knowledge intake and knowledge-related search paths, some institutions have shown to be some fifteen years behind accessible knowledge.