The basis for automated and autonomous driving is enhanced interconnection of the (driverless) vehicle and the traffic infrastructure. This does not only involve data exchange between the vehicle and traffic management systems such as traffic lights. Information on the availability and current occupancy of parking spaces will also be important in the era of autonomous driving. Therefore cities face the task of preparing their traffic infrastructure for data exchange with vehicles and commercial vehicles – or of providing the appropriate information at all in the first place. FKFS can draw on pilot studies which were able to determine the utilization and capacity of car parks in a city, accurately and in real-time. To achieve this, FKFS used similar sensors and algorithms to those which are used in vehicles. This even offers advantages in performance and data protection, since high-resolution images from a camera – from which number plates and faces can be clearly recognized – are not required for anonymous detection and categorization of vehicles and passengers inside or near a car park.

During vehicle development, drivetrain components must be designed with a view to their durability and a variety of other properties (e.g. performance). Since the driving style and use of autonomous vehicles will differ significantly from today's vehicles, the demands on drives for autonomous vehicles are, to a great extent, currently unknown. Aided by a variety of approaches, for example, volunteer studies in the driving simulator or on the road, FKFS is in a position to identify how passengers want to be driven in autonomous vehicles. In microscopic traffic simulations, virtual vehicle trials for autonomous vehicles can used to be study the influence of traffic and the road. The results can be used to generate load profiles, which are comprised of frequency distributions of individual parameters: e.g. speed and acceleration distributions for the overall vehicle, as well as specific parameters such as flows, voltages, speeds or torques for individual components. These load profiles can be used to investigate components in the early stages of development using simulation or later on, on test benches.