CulturalRoad took part in the 9th edition of the European Conference on Results from Road Transport Research (RTR Conference), held in Brussels from 10 to 12 February 2026. The project contributed to Session 5, “Socio-economic engagement of users and citizens in CCAM and knowledge sharing“, alongside sister project Diversify-CCAM, and the FAME and SINFONICA projects. The session was moderated by Marzena Jougounoux and Ingrid Skogsmo.
John Paddington, CulturalRoad Coordinator and Head of PMO at ERTICO, presented the project’s initial results on guiding the equitable deployment of Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM) services. At the heart of the presentation was the CulturalRoad Five-Pointed Star Rating System, built around five pillars of mobility equity: safety, inclusivity, acceptance, network optimisation, and psychological factors. Special attention was placed on the CulturalRoad participatory co-creation framework, currently being applied in our five demonstration sites, highlighting the importance of engaging stakeholders and citizens in the development of CCAM deployment plans.
The session brought together complementary perspectives from the Diversify-CCAM, FAME, and SINFONICA projects. Diversify-CCAM was represented by Anna Anund, who shared early project results. Giulia Renzi presented the final results of the SINFONICA project, focusing on its extensive citizen engagement work, which included over 290 individual interviews with vulnerable groups, 36 focus groups, and 12 stakeholder workshops, reaching more than 1,000 people in total. Dr. Stephane Dreher presented the achievements of FAME, which include the CCAM Knowledge-Base and the European Common Evaluation Methodology (EU-CEM).
The Discussions following the presentations covered a wide range of topics, including recommendations for large-scale deployments and the projects’ approaches to engaging stakeholders and citizens.
The RTR Conference 2026 reinforced a central point: technical progress in CCAM must go hand in hand with citizens involvement to ensure these new technologies are truly beneficial for everyone.
Missed the session? Watch the recording here.
Photo credits: RTR Conference – Alohafred
