Research project ended successfully

The SAFE20 research project has been completed! On 14 March 2024, the final presentation of the project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) took place in Langenau, Baden-Württemberg. In perfect weather, around 80 participants from politics, business, associations and the press were able to experience the future of automated logistics. AlbrechtConsult has supported the project consortium of eight partners in realising the project over the past 42 months.

The SAFE20 research project started in October 2020 with the aim of developing and validating a new, holistic safety concept for autonomous driving in yards. For the first time, fully automatic vehicles can operate at minimum speeds of 20km/h side-by-side with other manually driven vehicles and pedestrians. 

In order to be able to map the complex conditions in daily yard operations, the safety concept was validated under real conditions in continuous operation at the Dachser yard in Langenau near Ulm, Germany. In the follow-up to the project SAFE20, the results obtained are to be incorporated into the development of legal framework conditions for automated freight transport at trans–shipment points. Thus, the results go beyond a pure technology demonstration. 

“The pilot operation in Langenau has shown where the preliminary work of SAFE20 already covers the requirements and where there is room for improvement for later market solutions. However, the practical relevance of the project and the constellation of technological components and safety concepts are unique nationwide. I am proud of the top-class consortium and the excellent know-how that has been developed here,” summarizes Thomas Wolf from ZF, overall project manager. 

The SAFE20 Consortium: ZF CV Systems Hannover GmbH (Verbundkoordinator) | DACHSER SE | Fraunhofer-Institut für Materialfluss und Logistik IML | Fraunhofer-Institut für Verkehrs- und Infrastruktursysteme IVI | Götting KG | STW GmbH| SICK AG | TII KAMAG
More information: www.safe20.de