The Road Transport Research (RTR) Conference, held on 11th to 13th February 2025 in Brussels, attracted its largest audience to date, with more than 500 participants on-site and 400 participants attending online. Members of the SINFONICA consortium as well participated in the event.
This conference is a pivotal congress gathering the main actors of the European R&I eco-system related to all the fields of road transport: infrastructure, road safety, decarbonisation, digitalisation, urban mobility, as well as freight and logistics, providing significant insights on the state of the art of European funded research projects operating in the mobility sector.
From the SINFONICA project’s point of view, the most relevant sessions presented this year, targeting the impact of CCAM vehicles, generally evaluating the overall effects on society and specifically on vulnerable groups, have been the following:
- Integration and large-scale demonstration of CCAM solutions.
- Predictive safety assessment framework and safer urban environment for vulnerable road users.
- Human centric CCAM and driver safety.
- Unleashing the innovation potential of public transport.
- CCAM enablers.
For each session, the most significant ongoing projects to be here pinpointed are:
ULTIMO – Advancing Sustainable User-centric Mobility with Automated Vehicles – https://ultimo-he.eu/
The project aims to create the first economically viable integration of Automated Vehicles (AVs) for public transport and urban logistics.
Currently in the middle of its course (2 years out of 4), it has identified 3 urban logistics Use Cases – Herford – North Rhine-Westphalia (D), Geneva (CH) and Groruddalen Valley, Oslo (NO). In each site, 15 or more multi-vendor SAE L4 AVs were deployed, for a minimum period of 12 months. A user centric holistic approach, applied throughout the project, ensures that all elements in a cross-sector business environment are incorporated to deliver large-scale on-demand, door-to-door, well-accepted, shared, seamless-integrated and economically viable CCAM services.
ULITMO employs innovative user-centric passenger services, designed for a long-term sustainable impact on automated transportation in Europe, around the globe and on society.
So far, the project social acceptance has been tested among different types of end-users, and a large number of services and policies have been defined.
Move2CCAM – Methods and tools for comprehensive impact Assessment of the CCAM solutions for passengers and goods – https://move2ccam.eu/
This project started in September 2022 and it’s close to its end (July 2025). It explored the impact of CCAM solutions for passengers and freight transport through the establishment of a network comprehending 300 CCAM stakeholders and 8500+ citizens of different “Satelites groups”. Also, it defined 30 Use cases, 15 business models, 200+ Key Performance Indicators, and it recorded 52 stakeholder dialogues across 8 EU countries.
The main outcome of the project is the development of the Move2CCAM Impact Assessment Tool (IAMT), useful to evaluate CCAM’s effects on mobility, society, economy, public health, and the environment, which is expected to be launched in June 2025. Move2CCAM will also provide training to the Satellites on the effective use of the IAMT both in Europe and USA and put out training material (videos and guidebooks). At least 1 framework to assess societal impact in large-scale demonstration and 1 guide including recommendations for R&D in CCAM will be published. The Move2CCAM Consortium has also foreseen a collaboration with Japanese projects through FAME.
SOTERIA – Systematic and orchestrated deployment of safety solutions in complex urban environments for ageing and vulnerable societies – https://soteriaproject.eu/
SOTERIA aims to support the EU’s ‘Vision Zero’ by enhancing the safety of vulnerable road users (VRUs) through tools and models, concluding in May 2026. Key goals include creating Living Labs in 8 cities, developing traffic simulations, and using data like wearable devices and AI for accident analysis. The project focuses on interconnected services for safer routes and micro-mobility advisory systems.
Outcomes include VR-based accident prevention for Generation Z, safe micro-mobility integration, speed limit advice via ML, protective equipment evaluations, and road usage monitoring tools. Tested in four Living Labs, these solutions will provide valuable insights into safer roads and policymaking across Europe.
UPPER – Unleashing the potential of public transport in Europe – https://www.upperprojecteu.eu/
The project, running from January 2023 to December 2026, is promoted by 41 Consortium partners aiming to help cities to reach their climate targets, prioritizing public transports. Specific goals are to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030, increase public transport (PT) uptake by over 30% and user satisfaction by 25%. The overall strategy is to ‘”PUSH” people from private vehicles and “PULL” them to public transport’ through smart integration with new mobility services. Project actions involve five Living Labs and five ‘Twinning Sites’ across Europe.
Actions are based on five innovation axes shaping user choices, with measures such as diagnosing diverse users’ mobility needs, hosting workshops, and promoting co-creation of innovative, socially accepted mobility solutions. A key outcome is the UPPER TOOLKIT (its second version is currently under testing), combining social and technological innovation to support the lifecycle of UPPER measures.
SPINE – Smart public transport initiatives for climate-neutral cities in Europe – https://www.spine-project.eu/
The project started in January 2023, and it is currently in its middle course, ending in December 2026. The primary aim is to accelerate progress towards climate neutrality by reinforcing public transport systems through smart integration with new mobility services, sharing schemes, active transport modes and micromobility.
SPINE involves four Lead City Living Labs – Antwerp, Bologna, Tallinn, Las Palmas – which will foster transferability of the most promising solutions to seven “Twinning Cities”: Barreiro, Valladolid, Žilina, Šibenik, Herakleion, Gdynia and Rouen. A series of co-creation activities take place where multiple stakeholders are actively engaged in the development and demonstration of efficient, replicable and socially acceptable innovative mobility solutions. To foster this process across Europe, a Cross-projects cooperation took place involving other EU funded project such as UPPER (3 webinars held so far, more are planned), CIVITAS and Net Zero.
AIthena – AI-based CCAM: Trustworthy, Explainable, and Accountable – https://aithena.eu/
Coming up to its end (October 2025), AITHENA defines a harmonized methodology for AI-based CCAM solutions, covering perception, situational awareness (understanding), decision-making, and traffic management, focusing on the trustworthy AI pillars to serve the diverse end user types: vehicle drivers, function developers, and certification/legal bodies.
The project follows testing and validation methods aligned with the HEADSTART and SUNRISE EU-funded projects. Its long-term goals include providing policy recommendations for using Explainable AI (XAI) in autonomous systems (CCAM) and contributing to the open-source community with datasets like V2AIX4 (for AI models) and MultiCorrupt5 (for LiDAR-camera fusion testing). It also aims to offer a ROS package for improved vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication and is exploring ways to create better data governance in the FAME Data Space.
AI4CCAM – Trustworthy AI for CCAM – https://www.ai4ccam.eu/
AI4CCAM focuses on AI-based scenario management for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), carrying out simulation scenarios of road users interacting with automated vehicles. It develops an open environment for integrating trustworthy-by-design AI models of vulnerable road users’ behavior anticipation in urban traffic conditions.
The project also provides a Trustworthy AI framework for urban-traffic simulations, explores human-vehicle AI interactions, and aims to improve CAV user acceptance. It has created a validation handbook and reproduced scenarios with OpenScenario DSL. Future impacts include fostering EU project collaboration, training AI specialists, and strengthening Europe’s leadership in safe, sustainable road transport through interoperable Trustworthy AI frameworks and human-centric AI approaches.
CONCLUSIONS
The RTR Conference 2025 has been highly successful, reaching out nearly 1000 of participants between on-site and online, and presenting the main results from 90+ EU funded projects in relation to all the fields of road transport.
As far as SINFONICA is concerned, to our team it’s been of high interest to realise that the above-mentioned projects, currently ongoing, are indeed very close to our purpose and research methods, reflecting an overall forward-thinking approach to understanding the societal impact of Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) across Europe.
By focusing on developing tools that evaluate such an impact, particularly for vulnerable groups, all these projects emphasize inclusivity and user-centric solutions. Some of them specifically target the exploration of ‘vulnerable road users’ behaviors and the use of community engagement activities, recalling SINFONICA’s participatory approach, as to ensure that real-world insights are captured to inform better outcomes and a more aware decision-making.
Besides, the incorporation of comprehensive impact assessments through Living Labs, ‘Twin Cities’, and Use Cases underlines a common framework to validate findings, often combined with the blend of AI and/or high-tech innovative solutions used for simulation, testing and data collection. This combination of field testing and lab experiments further strengthens the reliability of the different tools being developed in each project for monitoring and predicting road behaviors.
This collaborative and data-driven approach is essential for shaping the future of transportation across Europe, in a way that promotes and fosters CCAM vehicles future acceptance, prioritizing safety, accessibility for all and resilience in smarter mobility systems.
