On September 1-3, the three EU funded projects, ARCADESHOW, and ICT4CART, participated in various workshops organised in the framework of the 10th International Congress on Transportation Research (ICTR 2021), that took place in Rhodes, Greece. The workshops focused on the theme: ‘Future Mobility and Resilient Transport: Transition to innovation’, an area in which the three EU funded projects play a pivotal role. 

On the first day of ICTR, the SHOW project, led by the Technical Management team from the Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT), organised a workshop entitled Challenges & Lessons Learned in CCAM, focusing on challenges and lessons learned in Connected Automated Mobility (CCAM). The scope of the session was to showcase the latest advancements in CCAM, with the aim to specifically recognise the key difficulties encountered and substantiate the lessons acquired across all layers to allow the transition to the new era — one that of real-life and wide deployments of the emerging solutions to transform the near future mobility in Europe and beyond.

The SHOW project aims to advance sustainable urban transport through technical solutions, business models and priority scenarios for impact assessment, by deploying shared, connected, electrified fleets of automated vehicles in coordinated Public Transport (PT), Demand Responsive Transport (DRT), Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Logistics as a Service (LaaS) operational chains in real-life urban demonstrations all across Europe.

Several initiatives and research projects were presented in the first day and contributed to the workshop, which featured interesting discussions on the latest innovation in the mobility sector.  Participating projects included: SPACE, SHOW, AVENUE, WISE-ACT, Drive2theFuture, Trustonomy, SUaaVE, ICT4CART, EIMANTRA, LEVITATE, SPROUT and ARCADE as well as from theCCAM Platform WG3. 

Dr. Stephane Dreher (ERTICO) presented the EU-wide ‘Knowledge base on CCAM’, which has been set up by the ERTICO-coordinated ARCADE project. The Knowledge Base on Connected and Automated Driving (CAD) is the one-stop-shop for data, knowledge and experiences on CAD in Europe and beyond. According to Dr. Dreher, the EW-wide Knowledge Base on CCAM.

Dr. Vasilis Sourlas, ICSS, representing the ICT4CART project, delivered a presentation on “A unified network architecture to support advanced CCAM Use Cases”. Aiming, among other things, to propose and design the architecture of the IT environment and data exchange, management and analytics component to enable the transition towards road transport automation, the ICT4CART project is uniquely positioned at the forefront of innovation since it builds on four specific high-value use cases, which are tested under real-life conditions at project sites in AustriaGermanyItaly and the Italian-Austrian border (Curious to know more? Visit the ICT4CART final event at the ITS World Congress in Hamburg – 11-15 October 2021).

After the presentations, the workshop featured a round table moderated by Dr. Evangelos Bekiaris and Dr. Maria Gkemou from CERTH/HIT, where six experts exchange views on two topics: “User Acceptance in CCAM” and “Road safety & sustainable, safe and road-worthy CCAM services”.

The roundtable discussion concluded that automated mobility cannot be seen to target road safety alone; it should be rather seen as a holistic new paradigm that has to fit and enable sustainable mobility while promoting safety, efficiency and environmental targets in a competitive and good-for-business manner.

The workshop Sustainable Mobility for Citizens and Touristsconducted by Dr. Orestis Transanidis and Vice Governor of Central Macedonia Mr. Konstantinos Gioutikas, had a strong local focus. It pointed out the mobility priorities and needs in the Region of Central Macedonia. According to Mr. Transanidis ‘Collective intelligence and gamification are the core elements towards the successful deployment of micro-mobility’. The session also highlighted e-mobility, which has emerged as the most promising technology for transforming conventional private and public transport in Greece.

With their presentations, experts from the three projects aimed to showcase recent top-notch research activities in transportation, merge research findings and policy-making tasks, facilitate the exchange of knowledge at the local and international level and draw conclusions and shape recommendations on the future of transportation in Greece and abroad.

The rapid development of technology and the need to achieve new energy and environmental goals for climate-neutral transport has transformed the whole transportation sector. Thus, transport research is critical for executing innovative solutions that meet future challenges through synergies among the industry and public sectors.

For further information about the ICTR2021 conference, please click here.

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ARCADE Twitter and LinkedIn

ICT4CART Twitter and LinkedIn

SHOW Twitter and LinkedIn