Swiss Association for Autonomous Mobility

Driverless transport will cost some jobs and create others, the test is whether Europe can reskill fast enough, two-year EU study finds

CCAM-ERAS project maps the jobs that automated mobility will displace and create, as its Brussels final event closes two years of research into the socio-economic transition to driverless transport.

Written by

Raphaël Sauvain

Published on

BlogEducation, Project

SAAM, the Swiss Association for Autonomous Mobility, was one of the 13 partners in CCAM-ERAS, a Horizon Europe project on the social and employment effects of connected and automated mobility. The project consortium issued the press release below after its final event in Brussels on 9 June 2026. One of its findings concerns Switzerland directly: the need to train public administrations at local and regional level. Swiss cantons and cities will be responsible for authorising driverless vehicles from March 2028. SAAM plans to develop its information and training offer for these authorities.

A two-year investigation into the impact of self-driving vehicles on European jobs finds a mixed picture: traditional driving and manual maintenance roles are set to decline as Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM) advances, even as the transition creates new occupations the sector doesn’t yet have people to fill. Europe’s tight labour market means these losses will be offset to a large degree by new roles, but the real test, researchers found, is whether workers can be reskilled into the new roles fast enough to keep pace.

The CCAM-ERAS project, a Horizon Europe-funded initiative bringing together 13 partners across nine countries, set out to establish the social, technical and employment impacts of emerging self-driving technology. Its findings were presented in full at the project’s final event in Brussels on 9 June 2026.

The clearest losses fall on truck and taxi drivers and manual maintenance roles, as automated systems take over more of the driving task itself. Alongside this decline, though, the research points to substantial task reconfiguration: drivers and technicians moving into supervisory, diagnostic and digitally supported roles, and entirely new positions emerging to plan, run, regulate and secure automated mobility systems. From an inventory of tasks across six real-world use cases, from port and terminal logistics to shared and public transport, the project identified twelve such occupations, clustered into four areas:

  • Running CCAM day-to-day: customer service agents, fleet orchestrators, remote operations specialists, technicians, safety drivers
  • Preparing the ground for deployment: infrastructure planning and engineering roles
  • Policy and regulation: policy officers, insurance underwriters, app interface developers
  • Building the underlying technology: AV systems engineers, compliance officers, cybersecurity specialists

The project cautions that skills gaps are already evident and expected to widen, as education and training systems adapt more slowly than the technology itself. That gap matters most for workers moving out of declining driving and maintenance roles, who will need clear pathways into the occupations the sector is creating if the transition is to be orderly rather than disruptive.

Its recommendation: employers, governments and education providers should use the occupational profiles, and the wider longlist of twelve roles, as the basis for training pathways now, ahead of demand. The project validated these findings through both a stakeholder workshop and by delivering initial training material to stakeholders that responded to the findings.

The urgent need to upskill public administrations, especially at the local city and regional level was also highlighted through the project. With one outcome being the design of a 2-day training seminar focused on advancing local governments understanding of regulation, authorisation and evaluation.

Project Lead Ioanna Kourounioti from Panteia said:

“CCAM is not simply a technological transition; it will reshape jobs, skills and mobility systems across Europe. As project coordinator, Panteia is proud of the achievements and the knowledge developed within CCAM-ERAS that have brought together expertise from across the CCAM value chain to turn evidence into practical recommendations. Our shared ambition is to ensure that automated mobility develops in a way that creates public value, supports workers and delivers safe, sustainable and inclusive mobility for all.”

Notes to editors

  • CCAM-ERAS’s White Paper, project video and full findings (employment modelling, skills foresight, socio-economic impact assessment and policy recommendations) are available via the project’s website www.ccam-eras.org
  • CCAM-ERAS is coordinated by Panteia BV (Netherlands) and funded by the European Commission under Horizon Europe. Partners include CINOP, Cambridge Econometrics, PAVE Europe, CORTE, MaaSLab, Rupprecht Consult, SINTEF, ITS Norway, WMG at the University of Warwick, and SAAM

Media contact for SAAM

Raphael Sauvain
Communication Manager
raphael.sauvain@saam.swiss

Funded by the European Union, with support of the State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation SERI. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union.

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