In 2024, the ERTICO team, in its mission to develop, promote and facilitate ITS deployment, was involved, with many from its Partnership, in a record 34 EU-funded projects. Of these five concluded this year, while we commenced work on more than double that number, with new projects standing at 12.
End of an era
This year, we saw the culmination of the Horizon 2020 Programme by successfully completing almost all the projects under this framework. Work in a number of these projects was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but they have now delivered results that will live on through other projects or real-life implementation.
5GMETA, led by ERTICO Partner Vicomtech, ended its 42-month quest to leverage car-captured data to stimulate and facilitate innovative products and services while ensuring data privacy, security, interoperability and ownership, in February. The Consortium held a public event prior to its end, which included a demonstration and launch of the 5GMETA Platform.
WeTransform ended in March having spent 40 months preparing an action-oriented policy agenda based on a structured dialogue with stakeholders to address challenges and mitigate negative impacts of automation on the workforce across all transport modes. Its Final Conference presented how the project has laid the foundation to ensure “that the transition [to automation] is not only technologically advanced but also socially inclusive and economically sustainable”.
SOLUTIONSplus concluded its mission to establish a long-lasting transition to low-carbon urban mobility in June. In its four-and-a-half-year run, the project demonstrated the viability of a wide range of electric mobility solutions in ten Living Labs around the world, including e3-wheelers, e-buses, e-mini trucks, e-mopeds, e4-wheelers, e-cargo bikes, and e-moto taxis. Other notable achievements include an e-mobility toolbox gathering more than 295 resources, a global e-learning programme available free of charge, and the establishment of a start-up incubator.
SHOW, the massive CCAM (Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility) urban demonstration initiative combining connected and automated mobility with electrification in the urban context, concluded in September after four years and nine months. The project conducted real-world demonstrations by deploying over 70 vehicles in European cities. The project has left a lasting legacy of resources for further CCAM deployment based on the core principles of user-centric development, sustainable business models, open data systems, and international cooperation.
eCharge4Drivers, led by ERTICO Partner ICCS, concluded its mission, after four and a half years in November, to make electric vehicle (EV) charging easier for users. The project successfully demonstrated user-friendly solutions and services to enhance the EV charging experience, including smart charging, charging stations for different types of vehicles, a route planner, an enhanced booking service, a real-time navigation tool, the Plug and Charge service, battery swapping stations for LEVs, charging points on lamp posts, and a tool to plan the charging infrastructure. The project also produced recommendations for investors and public authorities for future charging investments.
Entering the last lap
Next year, we can look forward to the conclusion of 11 projects.
FAME, which is coordinated by ERTICO, is establishing a European framework and methodology for testing and evaluation of CCAM on public roads, and improving cooperation, consensus building and data sharing for CCAM testing and large-scale demonstration activities in Europe. Among its various highlights this year was the third Interactive Symposium on Research & Innovation for Connected and Automated Driving in Europe – EUCAD Symposium 2024, which it hosted along with the European Commission at the venue of the TRA in Dublin in April.
GUIDE a Coordination Support Action (CSA) funded under the Connecting Europe Facilities (CEF) Digital programme, coordinates the 5G Strategic Deployment Agenda for Connected and Automated Mobility, and will ensure that the needs of the stakeholders in the 5G corridors ecosystem are reflected in the CEF Digital work programmes. In order to disseminate best practices, GUIDE launched an interactive map for stakeholders to gain valuable insights into previous CEF 5G corridor research and deployment projects.
IN2CCAM, led by ERTICO Partner Politecnico di Bari, focusses on integration and interoperability to accelerate the implementation of innovative CCAM technologies and systems for passengers and goods. In June, the project reached a significant milestone with the launch of a series of Awareness Events. These events are designed to actively engage local stakeholders and project partners. To date, the Living Labs in Tampere, Trikala, and Vigo have held real-world demonstrations of the innovative technologies and services developed within the project for a more sustainable and inclusive transportation ecosystem.
LeMesurier, another CSA, is approaching the halfway mark of its two-year timeline. The project has established assessment procedures to evaluate the impact of EU-funded initiatives under the 2Zero framework, aligning with its mission to achieve zero-emission road transport. Based on key findings, the project will provide recommendations to guide and inspire future initiatives in sustainable transportation.
NAPCORE, the last H2020 project that will end June next year, is the world’s largest initiative to coordinate data platforms across the European National Access Points (NAPs) and National Bodies, will come to a close early next year. In November, the project hosted the 3rd NAPCORE Mobility Data Days bringing together key stakeholders to address mobility data accessibility and strategies for data exchange in Europe. NAPCORE has made significant contributions to NAP harmonisation and enhanced interoperability. Key outcomes, such as the signature of several Collaboration Agreements, the development of the mobilityDCAT-AP, and the creation of the NAP Reference Architecture, will serve as a solid foundation for the project’s next phase: NAPCORE X, starting in July 2025. NAPCORE will hold its final event during the 2025 ITS European Congress in Seville.
NextETRUCK is coordinated by ERTICO Partner TNO. Next year the project’s trial sites will demonstrate their solutions aiming to bring about an increase of at least 10% energy efficiency in certain zero-emission electric medium freight haulage. It joined the Advanced Electric Vehicles for Efficient and Economic Transport Operations (AEVETO) Cluster, an initiative to foster synergies of R&D projects funded by the European Commission focused primarily on Zero Emission Heavy Duty Vehicles but now expanded to medium-duty vehicles.
PoDIUM, coordinated by ERTICO Partner ICCS, is advancing a set of key technologies in the physical and the digital part of the infrastructure to address the challenges in road automation and telecommunications in order to foster the development of advanced CCAM solutions. The project’s Living Labs, in Germany, Italy and Spain, are now in the integration and pre-evaluation testing phase of their five use cases. A series of webinars presented the developments ahead of the use case demonstrations, which will take place in 2025.
PRIVATEER, a project funded by the Smart Networks Services (SNS) Joint Undertaking (JU), aims “to pave the way for 6G ‘privacy-first security’ by studying, designing and developing innovative security enablers for 6G networks, following a privacy-by-design approach”. The project developed its first components for secure and privacy preserving data exchange over 6G. This includes prototypes of the anonymisation pipeline and trustworthy AI model. These will be developed further in new releases next year.
SINFONICA, in a bid to make CCAM solutions inclusive and accessible, will provide recommendations and guidelines for socially innovative, citizen-oriented, long-term planning and large-scale demonstrations of public and shared mobility using CCAM. This year, it launched a survey to gauge users’ familiarity with and behaviour towards CCAM and to better understand their needs and preferences in relation to CCAM services. The project also organised workshops and webinars to exchange insights on deploying inclusive and equitable CCAM services and shape future recommendations. In 2025, the project will launch the SINFONICA Knowledge Map Explorer, an innovative tool to exploit project data (knowledge base of stakeholders’ needs, requirements, expectations and concerns) in a structured way, also including the guidelines and recommendations towards authorities, operators, industry and CCAM demonstration projects.
SUNRISE is closing in on its goal to develop a common extensible Safety Assurance Framework (SAF) that accelerates the safe and large-scale deployment of CCAM technologies. The interactive SAF will be publicly available early next year on the project website. International cooperation activities peaked this year through meetings with similar initiatives worldwide (USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Germany). In view of its aim to engender public embracement of CCAM, SUNRISE also released an animated video to engage with citizens.
V4SAFETY, another project coordinated by ERTICO partner TNO, will provide a comprehensive procedure for conducting computer simulations to determine the long-term performance and impact of road safety solutions. It recently conducted a workshop where researchers and industry representatives were invited to test the project’s draft SAF. The V4SAFETY members by virtue of being members of the P.E.A.R.S. consortium contributed to the Technical Specification ISO/TS 21934-2:2024 “Road vehicles – Prospective safety performance assessment of pre-crash technology by virtual simulation, Part 2: Guidelines and requirements for application.”
Steady on the path
Projects launched a year ago have started to deliver results moving beyond the stage of finalising specifications and methodologies.
eBRT2030 was launched within the 2Zero Partnership framework to create a new generation of electric BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) systems to improve public transport and tackle climate change and air pollution in urban areas. eBRT released a concept report and pilot city factsheets for enhancing BRT in Europe. Real demos are set to begin in cities across the globe to show these systems in action.
deployEMDS, under the Digital Europe Programme, aims to support the European Union’s digital sovereignty, enhancing secure data sharing for a trusted European data ecosystem by preparing a data infrastructure, governance, and processing. The implementation plans for the 16 use cases were finalised and published. The project’s Innovation and Scaling Group (ISG) led by ERTICO, comprising approximately 80 external stakeholders, was established and kicked off its activities with a webinar. The project has launched training sessions , which will be supported by the ERTICO Academy.
PLOTO is on a path to increase the resilience of the Inland Water Ways (IWW) infrastructures and the connected land infrastructures to ensure that there is reliable network availability under unfavourable conditions. Earlier this year the project identified some of its key exploitable results (KER), highlighting the integration of advanced computer vision techniques, multi-sensor data fusion, and the development of a sophisticated risk assessment engine.
REALLOCATE is funded by the EU under the CIVITAS Initiative to contribute to the goals of the EU Mission Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities. The project’s goal is help implement integrated and innovative sustainable urban mobility solutions that will address the needs of diverse groups and communities, while rebalancing street space allocation. An important aspect of REALLOCATE is to connect with ‘Cascade Cities’ that will follow one of the project’s solutions and test its upscaling potential by drawing up a replication plan.
STREnGth_M, funded under the Horizon Europe Programme, is a CSA to support ERTRAC, the European Road Transport Advisory Council. ERTICO joined a number of its Partners in playing a key supporting role at the Road Transport Research Conference in February through STREnGth_M and its other projects. A key deliverable of the project reported on barriers to research deployment and made recommendations for overcoming them. Upcoming releases will cover training actions supporting the road transport area, future research needs, the road transport research landscape at the EU Member State level, and collaboration paths between EU and sub-national programmes.
SUM project is part of the CIVITAS Initiative and belongs to the New Mobility Services (NMS) Cluster. The project’s goal is to transform existing transport networks by implementing novel shared mobility systems (NSM) integrated with public transport. 9 SUM Living Labs (Cities) are piloting different use cases by implementing pre-defined push and pull measures. SUM works on a number of solutions including prediction, scheduling, integrated NSM-PT ticketing, and real-time NSM management which aims to reduce total door-to-door travel time, and ideally shift the behaviour of users away from private vehicles to public transport. The project launched a series of expert sessions, which is a valuable resource for other cities and stakeholders seeking inspiration and guidance to adopt new shared mobility services. Next year, the project will provide a Capacity building training on NSM under ERTICO Academy to share the results from the Living Labs, discuss SUMPs and Integration of Shared Mobility and provide policy recommendations.
New beginnings
This year ERTICO started working on 12 new projects, taking a coordination role in seven of them.
3DXVERSE, which will kick off on 10-11 December, is coordinated by ERTICO. The project will use 3D Digital Twins technology to enhance sustainable travel and communities. It will combine sustainability with technologies such as AI and VR to improve digital inclusion, and help building a more resilient and environmentally friendly digital economy and society in Europe. It will also play an important role in building the European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC).
CulturalRoad, funded under the CCAM Partnership, is coordinated by ERTICO. The project is developing innovative methodologies and tools to foster more equitable deployment of CCAM services by combining participatory planning with a novel Five-Pointed Star Rating system to capture cultural and geographical diversity. Since its launch in May, the project has been refining its methodology regarding the project’s five equity pillars (inclusivity, accessibility, safety, network optimisation, psychological factors), and defining the target groups and the data requirements.
ENVELOPE, also coordinated by ICCS, ERTICO partner, aims to advance the scope of 5G architecture as a vertical-oriented framework, and is creating interfaces tailored to connected and automated mobility use cases. The project has developed APIs to simplify complex 5G interfaces, making network capabilities more accessible to vertical industries and enabling dynamic adjustments to network operations. Key achievements include advancing the Experimentation-as-a-Service (EaaS) module to enable secure testing, using predictive analytics to optimize resource management and service performance.
EvoRoads, an ERTICO-coordinated project, kicked off in May. The project is defining safety assessment criteria and quantification methodologies covering a “Safe System” approach. It will develop a digitalised platform to enable dynamic monitoring of the infrastructure condition and road safety.
FRODDO, also coordinated by ERTICO started in June. It will create and test a full set of tools and methods based on a safe system design in a federated digital twin environment through the use of advanced technologies like sensors, machine learning, hybrid AI, and simulations. The goal is to make the operational design domains (ODDs) more adaptable and sustainable in changing road conditions, while improving the management of CCAM enabled infrastructure.
InclusiveSpaces, which began in May, will work to ensure that the built-up spaces are inclusive and safe for people living with disabilities and empowering individuals in vulnerable situations by standardising and digitalising design frameworks. The project has been identifying the specific needs of people in vulnerable situations in its six pilot sites to ensure the involvement of vulnerable individuals in the co-design of the technologies and tools as well as decision making.
JULIA is using the power of space technology to provide accurate timing and positioning information and create a smarter public transport system. The project which commenced in January has launched the Observatory of EU Space Data & Services in Public Transport to monitor and track progress of Galileo and Copernicus adoption in public transport. It provides best practices and success stories about the use of Galileo as well as air quality indicators built on Copernicus data.
LEMESURIER (see above)
metaCCAZE, a project coordinated by ERTICO, was launched in January to enable zero-emission shared mobility services for both passengers and goods in European cities by accelerating the deployment of smart systems that combine electric, automated and connected technologies and infrastructure. The project recently released a comprehensive framework to support the effective development and operation of Trailblazing Living Labs, focussing on management, communication, marketing, and engagement activities.
NEXUS is an EU Rail Project started in October with a vision to create next-generation adaptive and automated metro operations. The 24-month project will pilot its innovative approaches in Genoa and Sofia. A comprehensive analysis of passenger behaviour and needs, a Europe-wide assessment of metro operators’ requirements, and an exploration of the technological and operational framework conditions is currently ongoing. This research will help align historically rooted operational structures with the demands of future system transformations, balancing mandatory guidelines with voluntary practices.
SYNERGIES, which began in June, is establishing a dynamic platform for scenario-based validation and leveraging AI-driven innovations to set the global standard for the development and certification of automated mobility technologies. The goal is to allow CCAM systems to seamlessly integrate into everyday life for safer, more efficient, and sustainable transportation across Europe. The project is establishing a platform for CCAM experts that will play a prominent role in the design of cooperation activities throughout the duration of the project.
ZEV-UP, another ERTICO-coordinated project, is set to revolutionise urban transport by developing a frugal and affordable, user-centric, modular and sustainable Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) equipped with a swappable battery system for both passenger and goods transportation. As the project approaches the end of its first year this month, it has delivered three reports: analysis of specific user requirements and feedback, a comprehensive review of the frugal BEV market landscape (including demand assessment, drivers and barriers, cost-benefit, and life cycle analysis), and the definition of study questions and KPIs to guide data collection and analysis focusing on advanced and developing countries. The project also launched a continuous survey to better understand user needs that will help refine the ZEV-UP frugal vehicle concept ahead of the prototype building.
ERTICO Platforms
ERTICO’s Innovation Platforms and Data Spaces, which continue to maximise the impact and reach of innovation in mobility, had a new entry in their group with the launch of the IDI Platform.
IDI, or the ITS-Driven Innovative Aerial Services Platform, was launched in September during the 2024 ITS World Congress in Dubai. This new Platform will work on integrating aerial services into existing transport and city operation frameworks to meet the growing demand for innovative and sustainable mobility solutions. The platform fosters collaboration among governments, businesses, academia, and civil society, ensuring all stakeholders contribute to shaping future urban and regional mobility. The visual identity and website will be formally launched in the coming weeks.
ADASIS published a whitepaper detailing the crucial role of the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Interface Specification (ADASIS).
DFRS – Data for Road Safety – continues to advance in its mission to support the Delegated Regulation 886/2013, ultimately seeking to contribute to Vision Zero, mitigating road fatalities. DFRS signed a multi-party collaboration agreement with TISA, NAPCORE, DATEX II, Car2Car Communication Consortium and C-Roads in a move to harmonise delivery of Safety-Related Traffic Information (SRTI) in Europe.SRTI) in Europe.
EAVP – Enhancing Automated Valet Parking – is expanding globally, advancing toward a seamless parking experience. The current focus is on AVP 2, an infrastructure-based system that uses parking facility sensors to enable autonomous vehicle guidance. The ultimate goal is AVP Type 3, which integrates vehicle and infrastructure-based systems. To support this, the EAVP team is advancing a lighthouse project to drive deployment and evaluate its potential.
SENSORIS, became a non-profit association under Belgian Law a year ago. More recently, it has added three new members CTAG, Mitsubishi Electric and Xiaomi.
TM 2.0 published a position paper on the AI Act, which includes guidelines to support the integration of AI in a practical and innovation-focused way, to improve road safety and boost the competitiveness of the traffic management sector and the European Union.
TN-ITS has also had a busy year. It built on its engagement with DATEX II at the 9th DATEX II User Forum, bringing more clarity on the alignment roadmap of both standards. TN-ITS played a key role in supporting the EU’s rollout of mandatory Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) systems, contributing to road safety. Major partnerships were also established with map community stakeholders such as such as Google Maps, and speed limit data usage organisations like Insight Warehouse.
Other ERTICO Initiatives
The ERTICO Academy has continued to update its learning platform and will look to hosting more courses next year. In-person training was provided as part of the ITS Türkiye SUMMITS’24 in Ankara, Türkiye, this was supplemented with three webinars providing an introduction to ITS to local municipalities.
The ERTICO City Moonshot has completed 250 interviews, nearing its goal of 300. Preparation is ongoing to launch a report focussing on the two new topics of Phase II: e-mobility and Urban Air Mobility (UAM).
Beyond the Horizon
This past year ERTICO has again worked closely with its Partners to answer the EU’s call to make mobility smarter and more sustainable. A number of important policy initiatives relevant to the transport and mobility sector gave us food for thought and a call for action. The European Declaration on Cycling was adopted in February. The Data Act and the AI Act came into force this year, and will start applying from next year: while the former will become applicable on 12 September 2025, the latter will only be fully applicable on 2 August 2026. In September the publication of The Future of European Competitiveness was a also a reminder for the transport and mobility sector to prioritise innovation, security, and sustainability in transport.
At the mid-way point of the Horizon Europe Programme, as we eagerly anticipate the next Framework Programme, ERTICO along with our Partnership are making sure that through our joint activities, we help realise sustainable and resilient transport systems and contribute to a productive and strong economy.
Thank you for reading!
The ERTICO team would like to thank our Partners for reading and sharing their updates via the ERTICO website and newsletter. You can also keep up with all the news about the Projects, Data Spaces and Platforms via their websites, where you will also find their social media listings.
Best wishes for the end of the year. We look forward to more excellent cooperation in 2025!
The projects mentioned in this article are (co)funded by the European Union.
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CCAM Partnership Projects
