Transportation in France relies on one of the densest networks in the world with 146 km of road and 6.2 km of rail lines per 100 km2. It is built as a web with Paris at its center. Rail, road, air and water are all widely developed forms of transportation in France.
This is a timeline of transportation technology and technological developments in the culture of transportation.
Ligier is a French automobile and minibus maker created by former racing driver and rugby player Guy Ligier (1930–2015), specialized in the manufacturing of microcars. Ligier is best known for its involvement in the Formula 1 World Championship between 1976 and 1996.
The Véhicule de l'Avant Blindé or VAB is a French armoured personnel carrier and support vehicle designed and manufactured by Renault Trucks Defense. It entered French service in 1979 and around 5,000 were produced for the French Army as well as for export. It has seen combat in various conflicts in Africa, Asia as well as Europe and has also been exported to more than 15 countries.
The Bolloré Bluecar is a small four-seat, three-door electric car supplied by Bolloré, designed by Pininfarina and manufactured by Cecomp in Bairo, Italy, under a joint venture owned by Bolloré and Pininfarina called Véhicule Électriques Pininfarina Bolloré (VEPB). The car has a 30kWh lithium metal polymer (LMP) battery, coupled to a supercapacitor, that provides an electric range of 250 km (160 mi) in urban use, and a maximum speed of 120 km/h (75 mph).
Vehicular automation involves the use of mechatronics, artificial intelligence, and multi-agent systems to assist the operator of a vehicle such as a car, lorries, aircraft, or watercraft. A vehicle using automation for tasks such as navigation to ease but not replace human control, qualify as semi-autonomous, whereas a fully self-operated vehicle is termed autonomous.
First Transit was an American transportation company. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, it operated over 300 locations, carrying more than 350 million passengers annually throughout the United States in 41 states, Puerto Rico, Panama, India and four Canadian provinces. In 2023 it was purchased by Transdev with the brand retired.
A battery electric vehicle (BEV), pure electric vehicle, only-electric vehicle, fully electric vehicle or all-electric vehicle is a type of electric vehicle (EV) that exclusively uses chemical energy stored in rechargeable battery packs, with no secondary source of propulsion. BEVs use electric motors and motor controllers instead of internal combustion engines (ICEs) for propulsion. They derive all power from battery packs and thus have no internal combustion engine, fuel cell, or fuel tank. BEVs include – but are not limited to – motorcycles, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, railcars, watercraft, forklifts, buses, trucks, and cars.
The adoption of plug-in electric vehicles in the France is actively supported by the French government through a bonus–malus system through which provides subsidies towards the purchase of all-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids with low CO2 emissions. The government also provides non-monetary incentives; subsidies for the deployment of charging infrastructure; and long term regulations with specific targets. Additionally, France passed a law in December 2019 to phase out sales of cars that burn fossil fuels by 2040.
Experiments have been conducted on self-driving cars since 1939; promising trials took place in the 1950s and work has proceeded since then. The first self-sufficient and truly autonomous cars appeared in the 1980s, with Carnegie Mellon University's Navlab and ALV projects in 1984 and Mercedes-Benz and Bundeswehr University Munich's Eureka Prometheus Project in 1987. In 1988, William L Kelley patented the first modern collision Predicting and Avoidance devices for Moving Vehicles. then, numerous major companies and research organizations have developed working autonomous vehicles including Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Continental Automotive Systems, Autoliv Inc., Bosch, Nissan, Toyota, Audi, Volvo, Vislab from University of Parma, Oxford University and Google. In July 2013, Vislab demonstrated BRAiVE, a vehicle that moved autonomously on a mixed traffic route open to public traffic.
A robotaxi, also known as robot taxi, robo-taxi, self-driving taxi or driverless taxi, is an autonomous car operated for a ridesharing company.
Yandex Taxi is an international company operating taxi hailing and food delivery services across Russia, the CIS, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. It is owned by Russian tech company Yandex. The company is among the world's leading developers of self-driving technology.
WEpods was a Dutch public transportation system and the world's first self-driving electric shuttle to be implemented at scale. In 2019, the experiment was terminated at the buses sold, after the province Gelderland cancelled its funding. The WEpods never ran between Ede-Wageningen railway station and the campus of Wageningen University and Research, as planned, but only transported people across the campus.
The ParkShuttle is an electrically-driven, autonomous shuttle service that runs between Kralingse Zoom metro station in Rotterdam to the Rivium business park in Capelle aan den IJssel. The system first opened 1999 and has been extended since. It has three stops in Rivium, a stop Fascinatio and finally at Kralingse Zoom metro station. In 2022 six vehicles of the third generation entered service.
Oxa is an autonomous vehicle software company, headquartered in Oxfordshire, England, and founded by Paul Newman and Ingmar Posner.
Cruise LLC is an American self-driving car company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2013 by Kyle Vogt and Dan Kan, Cruise tests and develops autonomous car technology. The company is a largely autonomous subsidiary of General Motors. Following a series of incidents, it suspended operations in October 2023, and Kyle Vogt resigned as CEO in November 2023,. Still, the company began returning its vehicles to public roads in May 2024.
An electric road, eroad, e-roadway, or electric road system (ERS) is a road which supplies electric power to vehicles travelling on it. Common implementations are overhead power lines above the road, ground-level power supply through conductive rails, and dynamic wireless power transfer (DWPT) through resonant inductive coils or inductive rails embedded in the road. Overhead power lines are limited to commercial vehicles while ground-level rails and inductive power transfer can be used by any vehicle, which allows for public charging through a power metering and billing systems. Of the three methods, ground-level conductive rails are estimated to be the most cost-effective.
Gama, formerly Navya, is a French company specialized in the design and construction of autonomous and electric vehicles. The company was acquired from receivership in April 2023 by autonomous vehicle manufacturer Gaussin, and semiconductor manufacturer Macnica, and changed its name to Gaussin-Macnica-Mobility, Gama for short.
Smart Columbus is an innovation organization in Columbus, Ohio. The initiative is led by the City of Columbus and the Columbus Partnership, a nonprofit organization for development in Central Ohio. Smart Columbus was founded in 2016 to utilize $50 million in grant awards toward technology, transportation, and environmental developments.
