Autonome Transportlogistik in Österreich: Eine Analyse der erforderlichen Rahmenbedingungen

Abstract

As a central pillar of the Austrian economy, transport logistics contributed around 5.8% to gross domestic product in 2021.7 Road freight transport dominates logistics in Austria, with over 85% of transport volume being carried by truck.8 According to the World Bank Index 2023, Austria ranks among the top 10 global logistics locations.9 The high number of serious road traffic accidents caused by human error and the EU's goal of “zero traffic fatalities by 2050” highlight the need for safe transport solutions.10 The industry is under pressure from stricter emission standards, increasing pressure for individualization due to e-commerce, and a shortage of skilled workers. In Austria, 14% of jobs remained unfilled recently.11 Autonomous trucks could address these challenges by reducing costs by up to 40%12, alleviating the driver shortage, and thus strengthening competitiveness. While large-scale pilot projects and initial commercial applications are already being implemented in the US and China, Europe and Austria are still relatively at the beginning of testing autonomous commercial vehicles. The reasons for this can be attributed in particular to the unsuitable legal framework. This master's thesis examines the economic, infrastructural, technological, and legal prerequisites for the implementation of autonomous trucks in Austria. The aim is to highlight the potential and challenges in the context of Austrian transport logistics and to develop concrete solutions. This analysis is based on a mixed-methods approach that aims to identify the essential framework conditions in Austria. At the same time, international projects in the US, China, and Austria are compared to match theoretical findings from the literature with real-world use cases. This is supplemented by qualitative expert interviews that highlight the opportunities and challenges of automated trucks in Austria. The findings are then combined in a synthesis, from which concrete recommendations for action are derived. The results show that Austria has good conditions with the expansion of C-ITS and ongoing adaptation of the AutomatFahrV. However, on closer inspection, the speed limit of 50 km/h and the necessary physical presence of safety drivers prove to be impractical and lead to an underrepresentation of Austrian pilot projects in international comparison. Advances in AI and sensor data fusion reduce the need for expensive hardware redundancy, while at the same time a targeted expansion of digital infrastructure at critical traffic junctions is still necessary. In order to keep up with international competition, consortium pilot projects with real use cases and long-term support from politics and research that go beyond mere technical demonstrations are needed. Specifically, the focus should be on developing and operationalizing business models and use cases that spark the interest of companies in the logistics industry.

Date of Award	2025
Original language	German (Austria)
Supervisor	Franz Staberhofer (Supervisor)