Last week, from 19-21 May, the 16th European Congress dedicated to the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) sector was held in Seville: the ITS European Congress 2025, organized by the SINFONICA Partner ERTICO-ITS Europe, in collaboration with the European Commission.
The event is one of the most important attractions for stakeholders, companies and institutions operating in the mobility sector, attracting more than 3000 visitors, bringing together more than 140 exhibitors and organizing over 150 thematic sessions.
Also in this edition, as in the previous ones in which it participated, SINFONICA played a leading role, intervening in three sessions – Special Interest Sessions (SIS) and Technical Paper presentation (TP) – dedicated to the topics of inclusive and socially accessible Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM).
Specifically, the presentations in which SINFONICA intervened were concentrated on the second day of the Congress.
The first, SIS25 titled “Diversity, usability and equal opportunities in autonomous vehicles”, was moderated by Giacomo Cantini, from our coordinator Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE), and saw the participation of John Paddington (from the SINFONICA partner ERTICO), Paola Astegiano from FIT Consulting Srl, Frida Kühl from Etelätär Innovation, Michela Apruzzese from PNO Consultant and Nicola Hare for PAVE Europe.
In this session, participants were divided into groups, each assigned to one of the panelists, to conduct an interactive workshop. Each group was assigned a persona sheet, with the profile of a user with mobility challenges: the objective was to identify the main barriers and possible solutions to facilitate access to autonomous mobility, to imagine inclusive and safe solutions.
The second presentation for SINFONICA focused on the description of a technical paper prepared for the ITS European Congress. During the session TP11 “Testing and evaluation”, Giacomo Cantini of UNIMORE and Andrew Winder of ERTICO presented two paper regarding the evaluation framework developed in SINFONICA for the implementation of the participatory approaches applied in the project, and recommendations fro accessible and equitable public transport using CCAM.
Our ambition is to provide useful tools and methodologies for future projects focusing on inclusive and accessible CCAM, in order to capitalize as much as possible on the work and research carried out in SINFONICA.
The third and final session in which the SINFONICA project was presented was SIS44 “What could inclusive, diverse, automated public transport look like?”. The moderators were John Paddington and Céline Lefort from the SINFONICA partner ERTICO. Speakers were Anna Anund from the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Insitute (VTI) and Margarita Martínez Díaz from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, as well as Dario Irrera from the SINFONICA Partner RE:LAB. The panelists introduced the work done in the EU projects “Diversify CCAM”, “Cultural Roads” and SINFONICA respectively. Also in this session, the audience took part in the discussion by providing input and arguments to question how to foster the deployment of CCAM services in public transport in order to facilitate and support people with mobility challenges.
The ITS European Congress proves to be an important forum to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in CCAM research and mobility innovation. It is inspiring to see how many organizations and stakeholders are working and collaborating with the common goal of more sustainable, cleaner and more resilient mobility and transport. At SINFONICA, we continue to believe that the improvement of society must necessarily pass through a new concept of mobility, more and more at the service of users and citizens, in order to face the challenges of the future with confidence.
Keywords: ITSSeville2025, ITS European Congress, SINFONICA, CCAM, inclusive mobility, accessible transport, automated public transport, participatory approach, mobility challenges, social inclusion, user-centred design.
Author: Dario Irrera (RE:LAB)
