Assessing equity and sustainability impacts of CCAM

The European Common Evaluation Methodology (EU-CEM) for CCAM, developed by the FAME project, provides guidance on how to set up and carry out an evaluation or assessment of direct and indirect (wider socio-economic) impacts of Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM). The EU-CEM Handbook is part of the European framework for testing of CCAM on public roads. It offers comprehensive guidelines for the preparation of proposals, setting a feasible evaluation plan, evaluation area-specific considerations, and the assessment of project processes and outcomes. This paper goes into more detail about two of the eighteen evaluation areas covered in the handbook: equity and sustainability. These are evaluation areas that are, so far, not often dealt with in CCAM impact assessments. The equity chapter goes into how indicators considered for the various evaluation areas (e.g., user experience, or CO2 emissions, or public health scores) can be split over population groups, regions or generations. The sustainability chapter concerns the holistic evaluation of the CCAM system, showing how indicators from the other impact areas can be integrated to assess how the CCAM system contributes to environmental integrity, social well-being, and economic stability. It does this by examining its capacity to meet current needs while ensuring resource and opportunity availability for future generations. Both chapters discuss underlying theory and provide an overview of different approaches and methods that can be used for the impact assessment of these impact areas.