Throughout the congress, CulturalRoad was represented at the ERTICO stand, where attendees had the opportunity to learn more about the project and its approach to ensuring that connected, cooperative and automated mobility (CCAM) solutions are deployed in an equitable way.

Training Session: Practically Considering Diversity and Inclusion for Future Automated Public Transport Services

CulturalRoad co-organised a dedicated training session titled “Practically Considering Diversity and Inclusion for Future Automated Public Transport Services”, together with sister project Diversify-CCAM and SINFONICA. The session aimed to offer congress participants a practical, hands-on training addressing one of the more often underestimated challenges in the transition to automated mobility: ensuring that future transport services are genuinely accessible and equitable. Drawing from examples from the three projects and their methodologies to address user needs and concerns regarding the deployment of new CCAM services, the session represented a unique opportunity for participants to get practical guidance and recommendations and exchange with other participants based on their own experiences. The session was moderated by Miranda Quijano Monzón and Andrew Winder (ERTICO – ITS Europe), and Victor Ferran (Bax).

Discussions explored a range of practical considerations for inclusive service planning. Participants highlighted the potential of CCAM to fill genuine mobility gaps by enabling entirely new services that did not previously exist. However, these services should be equivalent to existing public transport in terms of frequency, speed, and ability to attract different users. Regarding fares and ticketing, the conversation stressed the need to offer different payment methods that do not exclude people with vulnerabilities, non-smartphone users, or occasional travellers. Similarly, where hailing or booking is required, alternatives must be available that do not require a smartphone. In cases of on-demand services, participants agreed that it remains difficult to decide which users or situations to prioritise. Linked to this, participants stressed the importance of carefully selecting the use cases that automated mobility services are designed to address, ensuring they respond to real needs rather than adding vehicles to already congested roads. Ensuring that the voices of relevant stakeholders and users are heard throughout the design and implementation process of CCAM services is therefore essential. CulturalRoad adopts a co-creation participatory framework, organising workshops with stakeholders and focus groups with diverse user groups, including vulnerable users, to ensure their needs are taken into account.

SIS 52: CCAM readiness: empowering cities, implementers and citizens

CulturalRoad was also represented in Special Interest Session (SIS) 52, which focused on how cities and mobility stakeholders can assess and build their readiness level for CCAM deployment. Matthew Shelton (Transport for West Midlands) presented CulturalRoad as part of ongoing CCAM projects in the West Midlands. He highlighted the project’s Five-Pointed Star Rating System, a practical tool designed to help evaluate the level of equity of CCAM systems within their specific contexts and environments, based on the five pillars of safety, inclusivity, user acceptance, network optimisation, and psychological factors.

The session brought together speakers from EU-funded projects CCAMbassador and RESKILLING, exploring how capacity-building activities and readiness assessments can be combined to help cities and regions move toward responsible and scalable CCAM deployment.

SIS 59: Virtual vs real: harmonising safety validation for automated vehicles

In SIS 59, Ruth Anderson (Oxfordshire County Council) focused on how to ensure automated vehicles are both safe and equitable for all users, presenting the CulturalRoad methodology and participatory framework to ensure that CCAM deployment reflects the diverse needs of its users for more social acceptance. She also emphasised the importance of V2X resilience as key for road safety and discussed infrastructure needs and the risks of excluding certain groups from access to automated services, highlighting the need to design services that are safe, accessible, reliable and affordable from the start.

The session also featured insights from the CERTAIN and PoDIUM projects.

The ITS European Congress 2026 provided a valuable opportunity for CulturalRoad to engage with the wider CCAM and ITS community, share insights from its initial results, and contribute to conversations to help ensure that the future of mobility works for all users.

The post CulturalRoad at the ITS European Congress 2026: Making automated mobility work for everyone appeared first on Cultural Road.

On 23 April, CulturalRoad was represented at the panel discussion “Automated Vehicles: Myths, Reality and Europe’s Road Ahead“, held at the European Commission stand in Hall 12. This interactive session examined the current state of automated vehicle technologies, separated common misconceptions from industrial reality, and explored how EU regulation supports their safe and responsible deployment.

Maria Alonso Raposo from CulturalRoad coordinator ERTICO took part in the discussion, addressing the question of public readiness for autonomous vehicles. Her contribution drew on CulturalRoad’s co-creation activities with stakeholders and users, as well as related projects ERTICO is involved in, illustrating the role of citizen engagement and user acceptance in shaping the future of automated mobility.

The session also featured contributions from Akos Kriston (European Commission Joint Research Centre), who addressed the role of artificial intelligence in automated vehicles, and Michael Wolfert (Volkswagen/ACEA), who discussed Europe’s industrial positioning in the global race towards driving automation. The discussion was moderated by Maria Cristina Galassi from the European Commission’s DG GROW.

The post CulturalRoad at Hannover Messe 2026 appeared first on Cultural Road.

For the global CCAM (Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility) community, this isn’t just about getting from point A to point B, it’s a sophisticated, real-world experiment in bringing maritime assets into a digital, carbon-neutral urban grid. Imagine hopping onto a 100% full-electric vessel that glides silently across the water, powered by high-density lithium-ion batteries and supported by “Smart Piers” that double as high-power energy nodes. These terminals aren’t just docks, they are tech hubs featuring DC fast-charging (up to 180kW) that syncs perfectly with the city’s electric bus fleet.

But the real magic happens behind the scenes with the exploration of CCAM integration. Through advanced digital connectivity, these shuttles stay in constant dialogue with the city’s traffic management systems in real-time. This digital conversation allows for smarter navigation and shared data, making the journey safer and more energy-efficient while paving the way for future automated maritime adventures. Stretching 11 km from the northern border to the south, this maritime “express lane” is the heart of Eilat’s MaaS (Mobility as a Service) vision. It’s all about a seamless, breezy transfer between sea breeze and a quiet electric bus, all while keeping the Red Sea’s famous coral reefs safe from acoustic pollution.

Integrating the human dimension: the CulturalRoad co-creation journey

What makes Eilat’s maritime transformation truly unique is its role within the CulturalRoad project. While the engineering focuses on batteries and hulls, CulturalRoad focuses on the people through a structured co-creation framework. This partnership ensures that CCAM deployment isn’t just a “top-down” technical installation, but a collaborative process where the service is designed with the community, not just for them. By mapping the social and cultural nuances of Eilat, we are ensuring that our autonomous future is inherently equitable, inclusive, and built on public trust.

From stakeholder insights to community action

This journey is already in motion. Our demonstration site in Eilat has concluded a deep-dive round of stakeholder interviews with city leaders and industry experts, and has already hosted a first co-creation focus group workshop. In this session, local residents and potential users became active partners in the design process, sharing real-world expectations that will shape how the sea shuttle operates. This participatory approach ensures that the “Cultural Road” to innovation is grounded in the actual needs of Eilat’s diverse population.

Eilat’s initiative, powered by the CulturalRoad participatory assessment, positions the city as a premier Living Lab for maritime CCAM. By synthesising global innovation from leaders like Candela and Hyke with local stakeholder insights, Eilat is bridging the gap between European technology and urban implementation. We aren’t just solving a local transportation problem, we are creating a scalable, human-centric blueprint for coastal cities across Europe and the Mediterranean.

While these shuttles will initially operate with crew assistance, the smart energy and connectivity foundations being laid today represent a bold cross-border cooperation model for the future of automated transit. Eilat is no longer just a vacation destination, it is a global benchmark for how smart, connected, and sustainable coastal mobility can truly shine.

Image has been generated by AI.

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Why inclusivity matters

Sergio Fernandes, Head of Office at the CCAM Association, opened with a keynote highlighting the broader societal transformation that automated mobility represents. Mobility underpins access to employment, education, healthcare, and social participation, which brings the question of who benefits from new technologies. Inclusivity should be embedded from the start to ensure these new technologies don’t reinforce inequalities. He therefore highlighted the importance of engaging communities early in the development of CCAM services and adapt them to local contexts.

CulturalRoad’s approach

Miranda Quijano Monzón (ERTICO – ITS Europe) presented the CulturalRoad methodology for more equitable CCAM deployment, which uses participatory planning to incorporate cultural and geographical diversity into CCAM deployment strategies. The project develops a Five-Pointed Star Rating System to assess transport equity across five pillars of mobility equity, and uses a two-step co-creation framework to engage local stakeholders and citizen groups in five demonstration sites in Catalonia, Karlsruhe, Ljubljana, Eilat, and the United Kingdom (West Midlands and Oxfordshire).

Diversify-CCAM’s perspective

Dr Anna Anund (Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute – VTI), Diversify-CCAM Project Coordinator, presented the project’s ambition to develop methods and tools that support CCAM developers, planners, and policymakers in integrating social diversity into the design and implementation of shared autonomous mobility. The project is collecting data in 12 diverse pilot sites in six European countries, covering a wide range of user segments, with a methodology that keeps user needs at the centre of the process.

What’s next

The collaboration between CulturalRoad and Diversify-CCAM will continue throughout 2026. Both projects are organising a training session with the SINFONICA project at the ITS European Congress in Istanbul, taking place from 27 to 29 April. The training session, “Practically Considering Diversity and Inclusion for Future Automated Public Transport Services“, will take place on Tuesday 28 April from 10:30 to 12:00 in Room 3B/11. More details can be found here.

CulturalRoad will host a second webinar on 13 May 2026 from 14:00 to 15:00 CEST, titled “Co-Creating Mobility Solutions with Local Communities – Insights from the CulturalRoad Demo Sites“. This webinar will provide more details about the project’s co-creation methodology and how it is being applied in its five demonstration sites and share early findings from local stakeholder workshops. More details and registration can be found here.

Watch the recording

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This webinar will explore how CulturalRoad is working with local stakeholders across its five demonstration sites — in Catalonia, Karlsruhe, Eilat, Ljubljana and the United Kingdom (West Midlands and Oxfordshire) — to better understand expectations, challenges and opportunities related to automated mobility. 

The session will introduce the project’s co-creation approach and provide early insights from workshops carried out with citizens, local authorities, and other stakeholders. Through a roundtable discussion with representatives from the demo sites, the webinar will highlight practical experiences from different contexts, including what has worked, what has been challenging, and what has been learned so far.

What you will learn

• How co-creation is applied in different local contexts
• What challenges arise when engaging communities in mobility planning
• What early insights are emerging from workshops across Europe
• How local perspectives can inform future deployment strategies

City representatives, mobility planners, public authorities and stakeholders from the sector are welcome to join the discussion and contribute with their perspectives.

Register now to hear directly from our demonstration sites representatives.

REGISTER HERE

Events details

• Date: Wednesday 13 May 2026
• Time: 14:00 – 15:00 CEST
• Format: Online (Teams)

Agenda

• Welcome and Introduction – Guido Cantelmo (Technical University of Denmark – DTU)
• Roundtable Discussion with the CulturalRoad Demo Sites – Guido Cantelmo (DTU), Xavier Sanyer (Barcelona Transport Authority – ATM), Dr. Maximilian Schrapel (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology – KIT), Špela Kranjc (Regional Development Agency of Ljubljana urban region), Paul Mullins (Oxfordshire City Council), and Yaniv Shmuel (Eilat Municipality)
  
• Q&A with the audience and next milestones

The post New Webinar: Co-Creating Mobility Solutions with Local Communities appeared first on Cultural Road.

Why Oxfordshire?

Oxfordshire brings together a historic city, rapidly growing science and innovation clusters, and extensive rural areas where access to transport remains a significant challenge. While the county is at the forefront of mobility innovation, with autonomous vehicle trials, advanced research institutions and real‑world testbeds, many residents still rely heavily on private cars, especially outside the main urban centres.

Oxfordshire has hosted a number of Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) trials, such as DRIVEN, ENDEAVOUR, MultiCAV, and OmniCAV, providing valuable experience and insight to inform current discussions on future mobility.

Building on this experience, within CulturalRoad, Oxfordshire’s focus is on understanding real mobility needs rather than promoting technology for its own sake. The aim is to ensure that future automated mobility solutions are shaped by people, places and policy priorities.

A co‑creation approach

CulturalRoad uses a two‑step participatory co‑creation framework that brings together public authorities, experts and communities.

In Oxfordshire, OCC led the first step through a series of internal stakeholder workshops. These sessions brought together colleagues from transport planning, service delivery, place shaping, innovation and policy teams to explore:

• Current mobility challenges across urban and rural Oxfordshire
• Opportunities for CCAM to complement public transport rather than replace it
• Barriers related to accessibility, affordability, governance and public trust
• Infrastructure and policy considerations for future deployment

The workshops were delivered online to maximise participation and were supported by follow‑up surveys, helping to capture a broad range of perspectives.

Key insights from Oxfordshire

Discussions highlighted that CCAM in Oxfordshire is seen primarily as a system and policy challenge, rather than a purely technological one. Stakeholders emphasised that:

• Automated mobility should strengthen public transport and shared services, not undermine them
• Equity and accessibility must be core design principles, particularly for older people, people with disabilities (physical, cognitive or mental health‑related access needs), neurodivergent residents and rural communities
• Clear governance, safety assurance and demonstrable public value are essential for building trust
• Use cases need to be specific and locally relevant, rather than driven by generic technology narratives

There was cautious optimism about the potential of CCAM to improve first‑ and last‑mile connectivity and reduce car dependency, with a clear recognition of the risks associated with poorly coordinated or overly market-led deployment.

What’s next

Insights from Oxfordshire’s stakeholder workshops will feed into the next stage of the CulturalRoad process: end‑user focus groups. At this stage, the work is planned to focus on engaging teachers and parents from SEND schools in Oxfordshire, who will be invited to share their lived experiences, expectations and concerns around future mobility.

Together, these findings will inform local transport planning and delivery, contribute to national discussions on CCAM policy and standards, and support CulturalRoad’s wider work on equitable and inclusive mobility across Europe.

By placing co‑creation at the heart of innovation, Oxfordshire is helping to ensure that future mobility solutions are not only smart, but also fair, trusted and grounded in real community needs.

The post From local insight to shared futures: co creating equitable mobility in Oxfordshire appeared first on Cultural Road.

As automated and connected mobility continues to evolve across Europe, ensuring that these solutions reflect the needs of diverse communities is becoming increasingly important. The webinar will explore how inclusion can be embedded from the early stages of design and planning, highlighting the role of community engagement and participatory approaches in shaping future mobility systems.

Bringing together perspectives from the EU-funded projects CulturalRoad and Diversify-CCAM, the session will provide an overview of how European projects are working to better understand user needs, address diversity, and support more inclusive deployment of automated mobility solutions.

What you will learn

• Why inclusion is a key factor in the successful deployment of automated mobility
• How different regions and communities experience mobility differently
• How participatory approaches can support better planning and decision-making
• How European initiatives are addressing diversity and user needs

Who should attend

• Local, regional and national authorities
• Urban and transport planners
• Mobility operators and service providers
• Researchers and project representatives
• Anyone interested in the future of automated mobility in Europe

Register now to be part of the conversation!

REGISTER HERE

Events details

• Date: Wednesday 22 April 2026
• Time: 14:00 – 14:45 CEST
• Format: Online (Teams)

Agenda

• Welcome and Introduction – Céline Lefort (ERTICO – ITS Europe)
• Keynote speech: Why inclusion matters in automated mobility, the importance of community engagement – Sergio Fernandes (CCAM Partnership)
• Presentation from CulturalRoad – Miranda Quijano Monzón (ERTICO – ITS Europe)
• Presentation from Diversify-CCAM – Anna Anund (Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute)
• Q&A with the audience

The post Joint CulturalRoad and Diversify-CCAM webinar: Why Inclusive Automated Mobility Matters for Europe? appeared first on Cultural Road.

While participants expressed strong interest in innovative and sustainable mobility solutions, trust, accessibility, and real-life usability emerged as key considerations. The discussions highlighted that future CCAM (Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility) solutions must not only be technologically advanced, but also inclusive and tailored to the needs of different user groups.

Building on these insights, the next step has focused on deepening the understanding of how such solutions could be implemented in practice. As part of our partner Regional Development Agency of Ljubljana urban region‘s engagement with the national innovation ecosystem, they were invited to participate in a meeting organised within the framework of the SRIP PMiS, focusing on smart mobility solutions. The meeting was structured in two thematic sessions. The first session brought together companies interested in the development of innovative mobility solutions, while the second focused on municipalities and development agencies, addressing opportunities and challenges related to the implementation of such solutions in real-life environments.

The meeting offered a valuable opportunity for exchange between technology providers and public stakeholders. During the event, we briefly presented the CulturalRoad project, highlighting its focus on user-centred CCAM solutions, as well as the key mobility challenges faced within the Ljubljana Urban Region.

Looking ahead, the upcoming focus groups will take these discussions further. While the workshop offered a broad overview of perspectives, the focus groups will allow a deeper dive into the experiences, needs, and expectations of specific user groups. In the Ljubljana Urban Region, workshops will be conducted in April and engage elderly, people with mobility impairments, young professionals, and students. By including these diverse perspectives, we aim to ensure that future CCAM solutions respond to real-life mobility needs, lifestyles, and digital literacy levels.

Through these steps, Ljubljana continues to advance the CulturalRoad mission: developing autonomous mobility solutions that are not only innovative, but also accepted, accessible, and aligned with the needs of the communities they serve.

The post From understanding needs to exploring possibilities: Ljubljana’s next step in CulturalRoad appeared first on Cultural Road.

Objective of the pilot in Vic

The objective of the pilot is first to enhance the analysis conducted following the implementation of the CulturalRoad Five-Pointed Star Rating System in the five demonstration sites of the project, which will primarily use aggregated data at spatial and population levels, supplemented by a more granular analysis at the individual level, covering both infrastructure (exact event locations) and road users (vehicle interactions with individuals). The pilot also demonstrates the framework’s adaptability and transferability to specific environments where particular analyses will be conducted focusing on some of the possible outputs of the Five-Pointed Star Rating System. More specifically, the pilot aims to evaluate the impact of changes introduced in Vic’s bus network on traffic efficiency, safety and accessibility. It also explores how vulnerable road users interact with traffic in particular boundary conditions, and how automated systems should be designed to better serve them. This pilot therefore stands at the intersection of optimisation, inclusivity and safety, aligning with policy goals across Catalonia for smarter, fairer and safer urban mobility.

In addition, the pilot aims to contribute to the global development of sustainable mobility, in line with the National Mobility Guidelines. These policies serve as a framework for promoting sustainable mobility in Catalonia, addressing new social needs, evolving citizen habits, territorial uses, and infrastructure requirements to drive the necessary regulatory changes.

Recording car and algorithms

For the pilot, the FICOSA team has equipped the company’s demonstration vehicle with a state-of-the-art camera-based Surround View System, complemented by LiDAR and differential GPS. These sensors are integrated using advanced calibration and data synchronisation techniques, enabling the accurate capture of several urban areas in Vic. In parallel, FICOSA’s data engineering and tooling teams have developed the necessary data infrastructure to implement multiple processing pipelines capable of handling the large volumes of multimodal sensor data generated by the vehicle. The result is a comprehensive and geo-referenced dataset reflecting real mobility conditions, including pedestrian presence and vehicle dynamics.

Several algorithms are then used to extract meaningful information from this raw data. Road users, including vulnerable users and users with physical disabilities, are identified using deep learning–based object detection and tracking models adapted specifically to the vehicle’s sensor configuration. Beyond simple detection, the system infers behavioural patterns such as awareness of the vehicle, intention to cross, and adjustments in walking speed or trajectory. At the same time, the car logs contextual metadata including GPS coordinates, timestamps, and vehicle actions such as acceleration or braking. This structured combination of perception data and vehicle dynamics makes it possible to aggregate observations over time and identify recurring activity patterns or potential risk hotspots.

Early recording sessions in Vic have already produced first results. This phase focused on tuning the algorithms and refining the routes and sessions to ensure the most relevant and representative data was recorded. The initial processing of the data shows that road users can be reliably detected with consistent class labelling. Combining these detections with contextual information will allow the creation of a representative picture of the mobility conditions in Vic.

Value of the data for the five-pillar system

Compared with the conventional data typically available to public authorities, the data collected by the recording vehicle provides detailed, synchronised, behaviour-level insights. It not only captures where and when road users are present, but also enables dynamic monitoring across different areas of the city thanks to the vehicle’s mobility and multi-sensor configuration. This makes it possible to generate fine-grained maps of occupancy and real interactions, supporting network optimisation and safety assessment.

Particular emphasis is placed on detecting vulnerable users, including people with physical disabilities, in order to evaluate and strengthen the inclusiveness of CCAM solutions deployed in the city. More broadly, this approach shows how CCAM-equipped vehicles can act as mobile sensing platforms that continuously enrich the evidence base for smarter urban mobility planning.

Next steps

In the coming months, the project will expand data collection to cover additional time periods and repeat routes several times, while refining detection algorithms. The next phases will include extracting and pre-processing the full data, as well as sharing them, together with the corresponding videos, with the academic partners so that they can apply the relevant parts of the Five-Pointed Star Rating System frameworks and obtain the relevant KPIs for the Vic pilot. This exercise also allows the delivery of concrete recommendations to the city of Vic for infrastructure and network improvements. The application of the framework to these granular data could also inspire methodological improvements for future similar uses of the CulturalRoad Five-Pointed Star Rating System.

The post Capturing real-world mobility data in Vic to support equitable CCAM deployment appeared first on Cultural Road.

The student workshop

The workshop focused on a core question: which personas are relevant for the Karlsruhe region and should be considered in the design of future CCAM solutions. Students were asked to develop personas and user stories for an autonomous shuttle service in Karlsruhe, evaluate the passenger interface by reflecting on customer journeys, and think through accessibility related scenarios. In this way, teaching became part of the project’s participatory process. CulturalRoad’s participatory methodology is based on the idea that mobility services must reflect cultural, social, geographical, and personal diversity if they are to be accepted and used in everyday life. Personas help translate this principle into design practice.

Identified personas

The discussions resulted in five personas that reflect very different relationships to local mobility. The first was a student in Karlsruhe, digitally confident, budget conscious, and highly flexible, but also sensitive to waiting times, limited sharing availability, and personal safety, especially at night. The second was a wheelchair user, focused on reliability, predictable journeys, and barrier free access, while facing risks such as broken lifts, blocked wheelchair spaces, long detours, and the emotional burden of systems that fail at critical moments. The third persona represented a commuter from the Karlsruhe region, balancing work and family logistics, relying primarily on the car, and showing limited trust in complex digital systems and public transport. The fourth persona captured an older adult in Karlsruhe, with low digital confidence, reduced hearing and vision, and a strong preference for clear routines, simple services, and human support. The fifth persona represented an international visitor, unfamiliar with local public transport conventions and dependent on clear orientation, plain language, and easy access to key destinations. Together, these personas made visible that the same autonomous shuttle service can be experienced in fundamentally different ways depending on the user’s resources, expectations, constraints, and vulnerabilities.

Redesigning autonomous shuttle interfaces

Students used the created personas in the virtual environment to evaluate an autonomous shuttle interface and identify usability issues. They emphasised the need for transparent routing, clear stop information, readable screens, multilingual support, discreet help options, and easy access to a human operator. The exercise also showed that interface improvements can exclude certain groups. Sign language avatars may be confusing for older adults, and additional map icons can help tourists but overload the display for users who need a simple overview.

From personas to co-creation workshops

For CulturalRoad, this teaching-based contribution helps to prepare the next phase of work in Karlsruhe by structuring which population segments should be considered more closely in participatory sessions. The personas now provide a grounded bridge from the strategic discussions with stakeholders to more concrete, citizen-facing design questions. The Karlsruhe use case demonstrates how education can contribute to research while also training future designers and engineers to think more critically about mobility equity. The classroom became a place where automated mobility was not imagined only as a technical system, but as a public service that must work for different people in real urban life. In that sense, the exercise delivered more than personas. It helped turn equitable mobility from a principle into a design practice.

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