News – Page 3

FEDORA Scientific Publication: Towards Fair Roads–Manifesto for Fair Traffic Engineering

Researchers within the Fedora Project have published a new paper titled “Towards Fair Roads–Manifesto for Fair Traffic Engineering” in Sustainability. The study challenges narrowly specified, efficiency-oriented engineering formulations in traffic engineering, establishes a link to modern fairness theories, and highlights the importance of fairness when allocating scarce, public good, mobility resources between road users. The paper was authored by Keving Riehl (ETH Zurich), Anastasios Kouvelas (ETH Zurich), and Michail A. Makridis (ETH Zurich)

Highlights

Advocates a new paradigm of for traffic engineering based on fairness rather than efficiency
Fills a gap in the relevant literature and establishes a framework to assess fairness in a systematic way.
Proposes a distributive, quantitative, ideology-free, and pragmatic fairness framework for infrastructural and behavioural traffic control systems showcased and demonstrated in two case studies

Abstract

Traffic engineering aims to control infrastructure and population behaviour to achieve optimal usage of road networks. Fairness is fundamental to stimulate cooperation in large populations, and plays an important role in traffic engineering, as it increases the well-being of users, improves driving safety by rule adherence, and overcomes public resistance at legislative implementation. Despite the importance of fairness, only a few works have translated fairness into the transportation domain, with a focus on transportation planning rather than traffic engineering. Moreover, existing works in traffic engineering discuss fairness superficially and insufficiently, focussing on only a few definitions. The mission of this work is (i) to challenge narrowly specified, efficiency-oriented engineering formulations in traffic engineering, (ii) to establish a link to modern fairness theories, and (iii) to highlight the importance of fairness when allocating scarce, public good, mobility resources between road users. To achieve this, a mode-agnostic, distributive fairness framework for mobility resource allocation is proposed. It serves when designing traffic engineering solutions, and convinces in public debates with a useful, argumentative tool-set to confront equity considerations. Ultimately, this enables systematic research and design of fairness-informed control systems, demonstrated by three case studies on signalized intersection management and static road pricing.

FEDORA Scientific Publication: When Fairness Backfires: A Chronoceptive Design Approach to Intelligent Transportation Systems

Researchers within the Fedora Project have published a new paper titled “When Fairness Backfires: A Chronoceptive Design Approach to Intelligent Transportation Systems” in Smart Cities. The paper investigates how chronoception—the subjective perception of time—affects user acceptance of ITS control strategies and how signal design can be adapted to reduce perceived delays. The paper was authored by Keving Riehl (ETH Zurich), Linghang Sun (ETH Zurich), Anastasios Kouvelas (ETH Zurich), and Michail A. Makridis (ETH Zurich)

Highlights

Chronoceptive ramp metering designs significantly improve user acceptance and perceived fairness compared with standard ramp metering, despite providing the same underlying traffic-control benefits.
Shorter signal cycles, countdown timers, and three-phase signals reduce perceived waiting times and increase preference for ramp metering, with the 45 s cycle design achieving the highest acceptance rates.
Intelligent transportation systems should be designed not only for objective efficiency but also for users’ subjective perception of time, as perceived benefits strongly influence acceptance and compliance.
Chronoceptive design offers a practical human-centred framework for reducing public resistance to traffic-control measures and improving the real-world effectiveness of ITS deployment

Abstract

Intelligent transportation systems (ITSs) and traffic control promise substantial efficiency and safety improvements but frequently face public resistance and driver compliance issues. Many drivers perceive such control measures as unfair or unnecessary, despite measurable system-wide benefits. This study investigates how chronoception—the subjective perception of time—affects user acceptance of ITS control strategies and how signal design can be adapted to reduce perceived delays. We introduce a chronoceptive design framework that integrates insights from cognitive psychology into traffic-control design. Using ramp metering as a case study, we conduct virtual experience stated preference experiments with 101 participants, comparing standard and chronoceptive ramp metering designs featuring shorter signal cycles, three-phase lights, and countdown timers. The results show that chronoceptive signal designs significantly improve user acceptance (by up to 12%) and reduce perceived waiting times, despite identical or slightly longer objective travel times. These findings reveal a systematic bias between factual and perceived benefits and highlight the potential of chronoceptive design to enhance compliance and fairness perception. This study contributes a new human-centred design paradigm for traffic control that aligns objective performance with user perception and outlines how chronoception and perceived fairness can be operationalised in traffic control.

One Year of FEDORA: Building the Foundations for the Future of Multimodal Mobility

Twelve months after its launch, the Horizon Europe project FEDORA has reached an important milestone. Over the past year, the consortium has transformed ambitious concepts into tangible results, establishing the technical, organisational and collaborative foundations needed to develop the next generation of multimodal traffic management solutions.

One of the project’s most significant achievements has been the creation of the FEDORA cross-sectoral Data Space. During its first year, partners developed the architecture for secure and interoperable data sharing, deployed a public mobility data catalogue, implemented automated metadata harvesting and multilingual translation, and introduced an AI-powered assistant to help users discover and understand available datasets. The project has also achieved its first successful live exchange of mobility data between consortium partners, demonstrating that trusted data sharing can become a reality across organisational boundaries.

FEDORA has also made substantial progress in developing its Integrated Platform, which will connect the project’s diverse technical components into a unified ecosystem. The platform architecture has been defined, creating the basis for integrating data services, optimisation tools and simulation capabilities developed by partners across Europe.

Simulation and modelling have been another major area of progress. During the first year, partners advanced multimodal traffic simulation engines, agent-based behavioural models and innovative traffic management controllers covering applications such as mobility credits, congestion pricing, Mobility as a Service and automated mobility services. At the same time, new Sim2Real methodologies and foresight analysis tools have been developed to help cities evaluate mobility strategies before implementing them in real-world environments.

The project’s six pilot sites have also moved from planning to implementation. Through Living Lab activities and co-creation workshops, local authorities and stakeholders have worked alongside the consortium to define use cases, identify operational requirements and shape future demonstrations. This collaborative process ensures that FEDORA’s solutions respond directly to the needs of cities, transport operators and citizens.

Beyond technology development, the project has established strong foundations for responsible innovation and long-term impact. Governance models are being developed to support collaborative decision-making across stakeholders, while dissemination activities have expanded through scientific publications, conference participation, workshops and growing engagement with the wider European mobility community. The consortium has also begun defining exploitation pathways to ensure that FEDORA’s innovations can continue creating value beyond the lifetime of the project.

The first year has demonstrated the strength of collaboration across the consortium. With key milestones achieved, technical architectures established and the first integrated solutions already operational, FEDORA is now entering a new phase focused on integration, validation and demonstration.

As work continues, the project remains committed to delivering practical, data-driven solutions that help European cities manage increasingly complex transport systems while supporting more sustainable, efficient and resilient mobility for all.

FEDORA partners meet in Budapest for the second General Assembly

The FEDORA consortium came together in Budapest for its second General Assembly, marking an important milestone as the project enters its second year. Hosted by Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), the two-day meeting brought together partners from across Europe to review progress, demonstrate technical developments and plan the next phase of implementation.

With the project advancing steadily, the General Assembly provided an opportunity for researchers, technology providers, public authorities and pilot representatives to exchange knowledge and strengthen collaboration across work packages.

A key focus of the meeting was the progress achieved across FEDORA’s technical developments. Partners presented updates on the project’s cross-sectoral Data Space, integrated platform, governance framework and multimodal simulation environment, highlighting the work completed during the first year and outlining the roadmap towards the first pilot demonstrations.

One of the meeting’s highlights was the live demonstration of FEDORA’s evolving Data Space. Partners showcased the first successful cross-partner exchange of mobility data using Eclipse Dataspace Components (EDC), illustrating how data can be securely shared between organisations while maintaining data sovereignty. Demonstrations also included the project’s public data catalogue and AI-powered chatbot, designed to simplify the discovery and understanding of mobility datasets.

The General Assembly also provided an opportunity to review progress in the six pilot sites. Discussions focused on stakeholder engagement, Living Lab activities and the refinement of pilot use cases, ensuring that the technologies under development remain aligned with the operational needs of cities and transport authorities.

Interactive workshops encouraged partners to contribute directly to the project’s next steps. Governance sessions explored stakeholder mapping and the development of a multi-level governance framework, while technical workshops gathered feedback on the Data Space components and AI tools. A dedicated exploitation workshop helped partners identify pathways for maximising the long-term impact of FEDORA’s key innovations.

Communication, dissemination and collaboration were also high on the agenda. Partners reviewed upcoming scientific publications, conferences and stakeholder engagement activities, while discussing opportunities to strengthen cooperation with related European initiatives, including the CIVITAS community and the Horizon Results Booster programme.

Looking ahead, the consortium will focus on integrating the project’s technical components, delivering the next series of milestones and preparing the first round of pilot demonstrations. As FEDORA moves from design and development towards real-world validation, the General Assembly reaffirmed the consortium’s shared commitment to delivering innovative solutions for smarter, more sustainable multimodal traffic management across Europe.

Making mobility data interoperable. How FEDORA is helping address the challenge

Making mobility data interoperable remains one of the major challenges in the transition towards smarter and more responsive transport systems. Data is often spread across different organisations, modes, and technical environments, which makes it difficult to combine, compare, and use effectively in real operational settings.

For multimodal traffic management, this is a critical issue. Without interoperability, valuable data from infrastructure, operators, services, and users can remain fragmented, limiting the ability of authorities and mobility actors to respond quickly, plan better, and coordinate actions across the network.

FEDORA is helping address this challenge by developing a more connected and collaborative approach to mobility data. Through its cross-sectoral data space, the project works on interoperable interfaces, common data formats, data cataloguing, and tools that support better data sharing, understanding, and validation. The goal is to make mobility data more accessible, more usable, and more relevant for advanced traffic and network management applications.

In this video, Peter Schmitting, Manager at ERTICO – ITS EUROPE, explains why interoperability matters and how FEDORA is contributing to this effort. His perspective underlines the importance of creating the conditions for data to move more effectively across systems and stakeholders, so that future mobility solutions can become more integrated, adaptive, and impactful.

The role of simulation tools in FEDORA

Simulation tools are a key part of FEDORA’s approach to building more adaptive, resilient, and future-ready multimodal traffic management solutions. They make it possible to test ideas, assess impacts, and explore different mobility scenarios before solutions are applied in real operational environments.

Within the project, FEDORA is developing simulation tools and environments that bring together different transport modes, user behaviours, and traffic management strategies into a more integrated framework. This helps the consortium examine how innovative services and interventions may perform under a wide range of conditions, including complex and changing urban mobility contexts.

These tools are not limited to technical testing. They also support foresight analysis, allowing FEDORA to explore what-if scenarios, evaluate possible future mobility trends, and better understand how different solutions may respond to disruption, demand shifts, and new multimodal services. This creates a stronger basis for decision-making and helps ensure that the solutions developed in the project are not only innovative, but also robust and relevant for real-world use.

In this video, Katerina Vakrinou, Researcher and PhD Candidate at the National Technical University of Athens, explains how these simulation tools and environments support the FEDORA project. Her contribution highlights the importance of modelling, testing, and scenario exploration in shaping mobility solutions that are safer, more efficient, and better aligned with the realities of tomorrow’s transport systems.

FEDORA Scientific Publication: Assessing the impacts of tradable credit schemes through agent-based simulation

Researchers within the Fedora Project have published a new paper titled “Assessing the impacts of tradable credit schemes through agent-based simulation” in Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems -Technology, Planning, and Operations. The paper presents an integrated simulation framework for evaluating tradable credit schemes (TCS) as an alternative to congestion pricing. By combining agent- and activity-based modeling with multimodal transport simulation, the study captures how individual travel choices, credit trading, and market dynamics interact, providing a more realistic way to assess the effectiveness and practical implementation of TCS. The paper was autored by Renming Liu (DTU), Dimitrios Argyros (DTU), Yu Jiang (DTU), Moshe Ben-Akiva (MIT),Ravi Seshadri (DTU),and Carlos Lima de Azevedo (#DTU)

Highlights

Tradable credits as an alternative to congestion pricing: travelers receive credits, spend them for peak-hour travel, and can buy or sell additional credits.
Realistic simulation: thousands of travelers, their daily activities, travel choices, and credit-market decisions are modeled simultaneously.
Reduced congestion: simulations confirm the effectiveness of tradable credit schemes in improving network performance and influencing travel behavior.
Stable market outcomes: network performance, credit prices, and trading activity stabilize over time, consistent with theoretical expectations.
Practical policy design: the framework enables testing of different tradable credit scheme configurations to mitigate undesirable market behavior and support real-world implementation.

Abstract

Tradable credit schemes (TCS) are an alternative to congestion pricing, offering revenue neutrality and the potential to address equity concerns through the credit allocation. Past research on the performance of TCS has largely relied on simplified network and market equilibrium models that may fail to capture the complexities of transportation demand, supply, and credit market interactions. Agent- and activity-based simulation provides a more comprehensive approach by explicitly modeling individual traveler behaviors and market dynamics. This study proposes an integrated simulation framework for TCS implementation within the open-source urban simulation platform SimMobility, featuring: (a) a flexible TCS design that accounts for multiple trips and individual trading behaviors; (b) a simulation framework that models interactions between travelers, the TCS regulator, and the market; (c) TCS optimized using Gaussian Processes and Bayesian Optimization, and (d) simulation experiments on a large-scale mesoscopic multimodal network. Results show that network and market performance stabilize over time, aligning with theoretical TCS properties from network equilibrium models. We confirm the efficiency of TCS in reducing congestion and explore its varied impacts on users, travel behavior, and market dynamics. Our framework allows for designing different TCS configurations and testing their effect in mitigating potentially undesirable trading and market behavior, ultimately contributing to a closer-to-practice design and assessment.

FEDORA Scientific Publication: V2VSL: Infrastructure-Free, Decentralized Variable Speed Limit Control

Researchers within the Fedora Project have published a new paper titled “V2VSL: Infrastructure-Free, Decentralized Variable Speed Limit Control” in Data Sciece for Transportation. The publication explores a fully decentralized, model-free, and infrastructure-free approach to variable speed limit control—V2VSLs. The paper was authored by Kevin Riehl, Davide Pusino, Anastasios Kouvelas, and Michail A. Makridis.

Highlights

Assesses performance on three highway bottleneck scenarios examples.
The proposed method achieves significant improvements in traffic states, with up to 15% higher speeds, 5% lower density, and 8% higher flows.
V2VSL achieves efficiency gains comparable to centralised VSL systems without the need for similar infrastructure, detailed models, and centralised communication.

Abstract

Traffic congestion is a pertinent issue on highways, with severe consequences on environment, economy, and quality of life. Variable speed limit control can help avoid traffic jams before congestion forms, as vehicles upstream are required to decelerate at times to stop emerging congestion from propagating and expanding. This work proposes a fully decentralized, model-free, and infrastructure-free approach to variable speed limit control—V2VSL—that employs connected vehicles as communication infrastructure, as moving sensors, and as actuators. Dedicated short range communication, consensus algorithm and gossip algorithm protocols, and a Bellman controller are components of this approach. At the example of three highway bottleneck scenarios, performance is assessed by traffic micro-simulations, that show the approach is robust to gaps between platoons and capable of recovering from periods of disconnection. The proposed method achieves significant improvements in traffic states, with up to 15% higher speeds, 5% lower density, and 8% higher flows. These traffic improvements become significant at a compliance rate as low as 25%, making the method potentially viable in near-term mixed traffic environments with partial CAV penetration. V2VSL achieves efficiency gains comparable to centralized VSL systems, but without requiring roadside infrastructure, detailed traffic models, or centralized communication. An open-source implementation and computational results are provided as SUMO simulation with Python on GitHub: https://github.com/DerKevinRiehl/decentralized_vsl/ .

From simulation to real-world mobility. Why sim2real matters in FEDORA

One of the important challenges in developing new mobility solutions is making sure that what works in a simulated environment can also perform reliably in real-world conditions. This is where sim2real technologies become especially relevant.

In FEDORA, sim2real approaches help connect modelling, simulation, and operational reality. They make it possible to test and refine mobility solutions in controlled digital environments before moving towards deployment. This helps reduce risk, improve reliability, and support more informed decision-making during the development process.

In this video, Katerina Vakrinou, Researcher and PhD Candidate at the National Technical University of Athens, explains the role of sim2real technologies within FEDORA. Her contribution highlights how these approaches can support safer and more robust testing of mobility solutions, while strengthening the link between technical development and practical application.

This perspective is particularly relevant for a project like FEDORA, which aims to support more adaptive, agile, secure, and resilient multimodal traffic management. By helping bridge the gap between simulation and reality, sim2real technologies contribute to building solutions that are better prepared for the complexity of real transport systems.

FEDORA at the ITS European Congress 2026 – A recap and photogallery

FEDORA was present at the latest ITS European Congress 2026 taking place in Istanbul, Turkey, from 27 to 29 April 2026 through a dedicated presence at the ERTICO stand, where visitors had the opportunity to learn more about the project’s objectives and ongoing activities throughout the event.

In parallel, FEDORA was also featured in the Special Interest Session (SIS) 42, Driving the future of multimodal traffic management: EU innovations for sustainable and resilient mobility, held on Tuesday, 28 April 2026, represented by project coordinator Dr Roozbeh Mohammadi (ERTICO – ITS Europe), as well as with the Research Paper (RP) Session 3, Network Orchestration, Energy & Routing Optimisation, authored by Katerina Vakrinou, Panagiotis Fafoutelis, Laura Rabadán, Klaus Heimbuchner, Ida Hönigmann, Stephan Krause, Eleni I. Vlahogianni (from FEDORA consortium members NTUA, VICOM, ITS-VIE ).

In the Research Paper Session Katerina Vakrinou presented “Multimodal Network and Traffic Management: Priorities, Stakeholder Needs, Intervention Areas and Insights from EU Pilot Demonstrations.” The session explored how European pilot projects use AI, dynamic pricing, real-time data, and multimodal coordination to improve traffic flow, reduce congestion, and support sustainable mobility. The importance of interoperability, stakeholder collaboration, and real-time data sharing for the large-scale deployment multimodal traffic management solutions was highlighted. The discussions with fellow speakers and the audience showed the relevance of continuing research and pilot demonstrations in order to better understand how these systems can be scaled and integrated into real-world transport networks.

During the SIS presentation, Dr Mohammadi introduced FEDORA’s vision for the future of multimodal traffic and network management, focusing on the need to overcome today’s fragmented mobility ecosystem. He highlighted how current systems still operate in silos, limiting coordination across transport modes and stakeholders. Incident detection, for example, is often not multimodal, while response planning and operational coordination remain disconnected between systems.

FEDORA addresses these challenges by working towards:

optimising and connecting simulation environments,
standardising and unifying fragmented mobility data landscapes,
and enabling interoperability between multimodal traffic management services and systems.

Central to this ambition is the FEDORA Platform, which brings together:

a multimodal network management services space,
a cross-sectoral data space for multimodal mobility,
and an evolutionary simulation space for network-wide foresight analysis.

The presentation also highlighted the project’s pilot activities.

In Vienna, FEDORA tackles the challenge of traffic systems traditionally optimised mainly for motorised transport. The project introduces a social optimum model combined with multimodal signal phase optimisation and signal plan performance monitoring to support more balanced and inclusive urban mobility management.

Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, the project addresses the lack of tools available to evaluate the impact of demand management policies. FEDORA supports large-scale simulation capabilities that enable cities and stakeholders to forecast the potential effects of mobility measures before deployment.

Through both its exhibition presence and conference participation, FEDORA contributed to discussions on the future of integrated, data-driven, and multimodal traffic management across Europe.