Approach

Emerging, fast changing technologies and new innovative business models are not only disrupting industries and established ways of working, they are also presenting substantial challenges to existing regulatory systems. The cross cutting impact of digital innovation and data have removed old sector boundaries and created new challenges for the transport sector that does not know how to respond. The current regulatory systems originally emerged several decades ago. Little has really changed since in the way regulators operate despite a dramatic shift in the world they need to regulate. Digital technology and data in particular have removed old boundaries, directly challenging these old practices. In general, regulation has struggled to be more future-facing, largely unequipped to cope with more fluid, fast moving technological development, preferring to let markets decide the direction of travel and intervening later as issues begin to surface.

If regulatory policies and institutions fail to adapt to changing markets, markets can become distorted in ways that harm EU’s competition, slow innovation, and ultimately deprive consumers of the benefits of technological progress. Against this background, the concept of GECKO is to provide to policy makers evidence and tools for new regulatory approaches to support them to lead the transition to the new mobility era and to a cooperative, interconnected and multimodal transport system. To achieve our concept GECKO has organised the workload into 4 interconnected building blocks.