INFRAMIX, totally aligned with the work programme, is preparing the road infrastructure to support the transition period and the coexistence of conventional and automated vehicles. Its main target is to design, upgrade, adapt and test both physical and digital elements of the road infrastructure, ensuring an uninterrupted, predictable, safe and efficient traffic. To meet this high level objective INFRAMIX is working on different technologies. It starts with the use of mature simulation tools adapted to the peculiarities of automated vehicles and develops new methods for traffic flow modelling, to study the traffic-level influence of different levels of automated vehicles in different penetration rates. It also implements relevant traffic estimation and control algorithms dynamically adapted to the current situation. Then it goes up to propose minimum, targeted and affordable adaptations on elements of the road infrastructure, either physical or digital or a combination of them. This work includes ways of informing all types of vehicles about the control commands issued by the road operator and the proposal of new kind of visual and electronic signals for the needs of mixed scenarios. The outcomes will be assessed via simulation and in real stretches of advanced highways. Key aspects considered throughout the project will be to ensure that the proposed adaptations will not jeopardize safety, quality of service, efficiency and will be appreciated by the users. To achieve its objectives INFRAMIX selects a bottom-up approach. Instead of working in generic solutions with questionable impact, it builds on three specific high value (in terms of importance for traffic efficiency and safety) traffic scenarios, namely “dynamic lane assignment”, “roadworks zones” and “bottlenecks”. Although INFRAMIX is targeting mainly highways (expected to be the initial hosts of such mixed traffic) its key results can be easily transferred to urban roads.

The objective of VIRTUAL is to improve the safety of road users by providing procedures and open access tools to assess the benefit of novel safety systems. The goal is to establish a European based global hub for Open Source Virtual Testing (OpenVT) and to demonstrate its success in traffic safety. Open Source Human Body Models of both men and women will be made available in a format that is scalable to represent different ages and sizes of car occupants, vulnerable road users, and users of public transport. VIRTUAL will develop computationally efficient, robust crash simulation tools and standardised protocols for impact scenarios not yet considered in regulations or consumer testing. It will cover enhanced integrated safety for pedestrians, cyclists, occupants of (automated) vehicles and public transport. An OpenVT platform will be established to provide stakeholders with all models, tools and protocols for virtual testing (VT); the platform will continue to be available after this project has ended. These new resources will allow the European automotive sector and transport providers to produce better performing safety systems that will reduce road casualties. VIRTUAL will demonstrate how current road safety assessments can be complemented and improved by VT giving full credit to vehicle manufacturers and transport providers for their efforts in providing best real-world vehicle safety. VIRTUAL will close the gap between VT and standardised vehicle safety assessments by providing models of the humans (validated for safety assessment) and the protocols and criteria needed to identify the foremost road user protection beyond the scope of physical testing and provide a method for cost-benefit analysis of novel systems. VT will reduce the number of physical tests needed while addressing a greater variety of accident scenarios and road users, actively promoting safety innovations reducing the number of injuries and fatalities providing safer road transport in Europe.

SMARTER TOGETHER’s overarching vision is to find the right balance between smart technologies and organizational/ governance dimensions in order to deliver smart and inclusive solutions and to improve citizen’s quality of life. SMARTER TOGETHER gather the European Lighthouse cities Lyon, Munich, Vienna, the Follower cities Santiago de Compostela, Sofia, Venice and Kyiv and Yokohama as observer cities bringing the perspective of East Europe and Asia. The cities are complemented by business partners from energy, mobility and ICT sectors, leading European research and academia organizations, european city network. From the various combinations of the different selected Light House areas, multiples opportunities to learn are offering. SMARTER TOGETHER delivers 5 clusters of co-created, smart and integrated solutions: (1) Living labs for citizen engagement, (2) District heating and RES for low energy districts, (3) Holistic refurbishment for low energy districts addressing public and private housing, (4) Smart Data management platform and smart services (5) E-mobility solutions for sustainable mobility. Expected results are: 1) >151,800 m2 of refurbished buildings, primarily housing estate with a 50-60 % average energy and CO2 reduction; 2) 14.6 MW of newly installed renewable capacity; 3) 10/15new e-mobility solutions for passengers and freight); 4) 1400 created jobs, 130 M€ investments, all deployed with support of integrated ICT solutions and in dialogue with the inhabitants. Large-scale replication will be prepared; 1) in the Lighthouse cities; 2) the Follower cities, which already selected their target area; 3) A Club of 15-20 cities, associate to intensify its roll-out, ensuring a broad geographical and climate coverage. Commercial exploitation is enhanced by the development of new business models for widespread use by the stakeholders. Contributions to open data are expected to create business opportunities as well as inputs to standardization work.

Creating trust in wireless solutions and increasing social acceptance are major challenges to achieve the full potential of the Internet of Things. SCOTT, with 57 key partners from 12 countries (EU + Brazil), will provide efficient solutions of wireless, end-to-end secure, trustworthy connectivity and interoperability to bridge the last mile to the market (TRL 6-7). SCOTT focusses on wireless sensor & actuator networks and communication in mobility, smart infrastructure and health, thus addressing essential European societal challenges and significantly contributing to burning issues such as Automated Vehicles or Industry 4.0. SCOTT is based on 15 industrial use cases with a focus on cross-domain applications and heterogeneous environments, emphasizing 5G and cloud computing aspects. It uses a standardized multi-domain reference architecture, fully compliant with ISO 29182, which fosters reusability, scalability, and interoperability. Nearly 50 reusable technical building blocks will be developed and utilized, proving cross-domain sharing of trustable wireless technologies and services. Finally, more than 20 tangible demonstrators will be presented all over Europe to a broader public. Following a user-centred design to put security and privacy really in the hands of the user, SCOTT will build up and apply a dedicated Trusted System Development Framework to significantly foster acceptance of SCOTT solutions on the market, including the creation of an unprecedented, standardisable ‘privacy labelling’. SCOTT covers full value chains from silicon to end-users/operators showing full vertical integration. Via reference implementations and open innovation approaches as well as close cooperation with AIOTI and other cluster organizations, SCOTT will establish an attractive, long-term eco-system. Ultimately, SCOTT will foster Europe’s independence for security enabling components and systems and will further boost the growing “internet economy”.

The FINE 1 project aims to reduce operational costs of railways by a reduction of energy use and noise related to rail traffic. The project results are expected to enable an increase of traffic in Europe and to enhance the attractiveness of railway in relation to other modes of transport. The project activities will support the innovation process within the S2R Technical Demonstrators (TDs) by providing methodology and know-how to enable development of low noise and low energy TDs. The project is fully in line with the EU objectives with eight technical work packages (WPs) addressing technologies to support these objectives. The reduction of energy use for rail vehicles is as addressed in WP 3 and WP4 and will indirectly lead to reduced green-house gas emissions, also with most rail transport powered with electricity. Further, reducing energy use will lower the life cycle cost and the costs of vehicle operation. The project also aims at development of practical methods for predicting noise and vibration performance on system level including both rolling stock, infrastructure and its environment. Prediction of interior vehicle noise is addressed in WP 7 and source modelling for interior and exterior noise in WP 8. With an accurate characterization of each contributing source, it will be possible to optimize cost benefit scenarios, as addressed in WP 6, as well as take exposure and comfort into account. Finally, the auralisation and visualisation techniques of traffic noise scenarios and the noise control techniques developed in WP 9, support the reduction of noise exposure for residents by efficient traffic planning and novel mitigation techniques. In summary, the expected FINE 1 advances of the state-of-the-art in noise modelling and control as well as in energy management and control methodology, will improve the competitiveness of the European railway system compared to other modes of transportation and thus promoting a modal shift to rail.