AURORA is a cross-disciplinary project aiming at linking aeronautical, smart mobility, intelligent systems, urban planning, and citizens’ engagement with industry, authorities and citizens perspectives to foster the adoption of urban air mobility. AURORA primary focuses on emergency-related applications, such as medical emergency services and/or critical mobility infrastructure-related services, where urban air mobility can extend and complement current mobility systems. We believe that applications, where urban air mobility brings added value on top of the existing solutions, have a clear value proposition for the end-user and represent a fruitful path for early urban air mobility services acceptance. However, to get there technological, regulatory, economic, environmental and social challenges still need to be addressed and related gaps bridged. AURORA focuses on bridging these gaps and facilitating the integration of urban air mobility in a safe, secure, quiet and green manner. In more depth, AURORA research and innovation activities aim at implementing the enablers of intelligent urban air mobility for multitude of safety-critical applications in the urban environment. One of the key enablers of the urban air mobility is an intelligent and autonomous self-piloted or UAV capable of autonomous trajectory generation while detecting and avoiding obstacles (both aerial and ground objects) in normal and abnormal conditions. AURORA will focus on the development of intelligent and fail-safe guidance-navigation-control features of unmanned aerial system and augmented manned platform operating in urban environment. This includes, among others, an autonomous and continuous selection of emergency landing sites and automated landing in case of fatal malfunctioning of the unmanned aerial vehicle itself. The use-cases include decision making support to emergency services and insertion and extraction of life support items or victims/first responders at location of incident.

UPPER aims at spearheading a Public Transport revolution that will strengthen the role of PT as the flagship of sustainability and innovation of mobility in cities, leading the transition towards a zero emission mobility which will become the cornerstone of climate neutrality by 2030, in line with the goal of Cities Mission and the priorities of the Green Deal. UPPER will put the Public Transport at the centre of the mobility ecosystem and will implement a combination of 84 push and pull measures, acting on the 5 innovation axes that condition user’s choices: mindset and culture, urban mobility planning, mobility services ecosystem, road network management and democratic governance. These measures will act in 4 different timescales (from shorter to longer-term): communication, operations, infrastructure and urban fabric. The UPPER measures will be supported by the UPPER Toolkit (U-TWIN, U-SIM, U-NEED, U-GOV, U-KNOW, U-TRANSFER and U-SUMP), 7 IT tools combining social and technological innovation that will be demonstrated within the measures in the 5+5 UPPER living labs and twinning sites, with the overall target of increasing the use of public transport by >30% and the user satisfaction by >25%, leaving nobody behind in the process. This integrated and holistic approach will ease the cooperation among authorities and operators, offer a physical and digital environment to test the measures, update the existing SUMPs, optimise the PT offer in line with user needs and patterns, involve the users in the overall mobility decision chain, trigger the behavioural change in favour of Public Transport and achieve an attractive, efficient, reliable, safe, inclusive and affordable Public Transport system in line with the concept of Mobility as a Right (MaaR)

Europe's fragmented transport system, characterised by a diverse range of national regulations, necessitates innovative solutions. This densely populated, polycentric landscape presents a unique opportunity to address congestion, decarbonise transport, and connect regions. Recognising the transformative potential of hyperloop technology, Hyper4Rail aims to shape future mobility by converging European efforts towards a standardised hyperloop system. Led by the Hyperloop Development Program (HDP), Hyper4Rail brings together key European players – major hyperloop developers and Rail Europe members – to establish a common European hyperloop design concept at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 2. This will be followed by demonstrating core subsystems at TRL 4 and defining pathways for industrialization and commercialisation, underpinned by a business case that identifies potentially viable use cases. Aligning with the EU's industrial strategy, Hyper4Rail fosters a technology-agnostic approach, leadership in standard setting, and the development of resilient passenger transport and supply chains. Hyper4Rail pursues a two-pronged approach: (1) technical harmonisation, industrialisation roadmaps, and applicability studies at TRL 2; and (2) design concept and validation of key subsystems at TRL 4. This directly addresses the goals of the Europe's Rail Joint Undertaking's Multiannual Work Programme (MAWP), particularly Flagship Area 7: "Innovation on new approaches for guided transport modes". As stated in the MAWP, this area seeks to explore "non-traditional and emerging flexible and/or high-speed guided transport systems," including "new types of railway-based transport, such as ultra-high-speed trains". Hyperloop technology aligns strongly with this vision, aiming to provide a socioeconomically efficient and long-term sustainable transport solution for citizens and businesses across Europe.

HiReach aims to eliminate transport poverty by triggering new mobility solutions sustained by products scaling up on mixed needs, backed by mobile information technologies and social innovations, using open tools, technology transfer and startup development techniques to find and exploit new business ideas that reach low accessibility social groups and areas. HiReach builds on the potential of bundling and mixing dispersed, special and non-coordinated/optimised trip requests and needs from different vulnerable user groups to favour inclusive and participated vs. exclusive/special and geographically-limited mobility. By combining different attributes of available transport concepts and bottom-up initiatives with new operational schemes and IT applications, HiReach will explore viable business models for small scale, modular and easily replicable mobility services (e.g. community transport services, ridesharing, minibus pooling, etc.) that can be provided at affordable prices and/or with minimum subsidies. HiR