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

The post Key takeaways from the CulturalRoad and Diversify-CCAM joint webinar on inclusive automated mobility appeared first on Cultural Road.

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.

The post From classroom to co-creation: how students developed personas to shape equitable mobility in Karlsruhe appeared first on Cultural Road.

Recently, the CulturalRoad project hosted a stakeholder workshop bringing together experts, local authorities, and community representatives from across the West Midlands. The goal was simple but ambitious: to move beyond the tech-first approach and understand the cultural, social, and geographical factors that will determine whether autonomous transport succeeds or fails in our streets.

Here are the key takeaways from our deep dive into the West Midlands demo site.

Bridging the urban-rural divide

While the West Midlands is often seen as a sprawling urban conurbation, stakeholders highlighted the pockets of isolation that exist in both rural fringes (like Solihull and South Coventry) and underserved urban transport deserts.

CCAM isn’t just about high-tech city shuttles; stakeholders identified a massive opportunity for automated vehicles to act as first and last mile connectors. By linking residents to existing bus and rail hubs, CCAM can help dissolve the barriers that currently limit access to jobs and education for those without private cars.

Trust is a cultural currency

In a region as ethnically and socio-economically diverse as the West Midlands, one size fits all communication doesn’t work. The workshop emphasised that trust is the biggest hurdle.

Participants noted that for many communities, there is a fear of being experimented on or being left behind by expensive new technologies. To counter this, stakeholders advocated for:

• Hyper-local engagement: Talking to people in their community centres, not just online.
• Transparency: Being clear about data privacy and who actually owns these services.
• Representation: Ensuring the AI and algorithms behind these vehicles recognise and respect the diversity of the people using our streets.

Safety beyond the sensor

Technologists often talk about safety in terms of collision avoidance. However, stakeholders pushed for a broader definition: Personal Safety.

In the West Midlands, the psychological factor of traveling in a vehicle without a human driver or conductor is significant. Stakeholders raised concerns about anti-social behaviour and how vulnerable users particularly women, the elderly, and those with disabilities will feel at night. The consensus? For CCAM to be equitable, it must feel as safe as a well-lit, staffed station, not just a robot on wheels.

Honouring the automotive heritage

There is a unique pride in the West Midlands regarding vehicle manufacturing. Stakeholders highlighted that the transition to autonomous transport shouldn’t be seen as the end of an era, but as a re-skilling opportunity. By positioning the region as a global hub for CCAM testing and deployment, we can ensure that the economic benefits—and the high-skilled jobs—stay right here in the heart of the UK.

What’s next?

The insights from this workshop are now being fed into the CulturalRoad Five-Pointed Star Rating System, which evaluates CCAM through the lenses of Inclusivity, Acceptance, Safety, Network Optimisation, and Psychological Factors.

The West Midlands has always been the workshop of the world. Now, through co-creation and community led design, it is becoming the workshop for a fairer, greener, and more connected future.

The post From industrial heartland to automated future: co-creating CCAM in the West Midlands appeared first on Cultural Road.

The first day centred on the project’s Five-Pointed Star Rating System, with partners reviewing data, key performance indicators established, and methodology alongside the first results achieved to date. The initial insights gathered through stakeholder workshops held in the project’s five demonstration sites in Catalonia, Ljubljana, the United Kingdom, Karlsruhe, and Eilat was also an important part of the first day discussions. With focus groups involving end users scheduled to begin later this year, partners reviewed and coordinated their approach to ensure consistency across all demo sites in preparation for that next key stage of the CulturalRoad co-creation framework.

The second day turned to communication, dissemination, and exploitation, central areas to the project’s long-term impact. Two dedicated workshops gave partners the chance to engage collectively on the project’s one level up / one level down knowledge transfer mechanism, discussing how knowledge generated within CulturalRoad can be transferred to national policymakers, municipalities, and local authorities. Partners also worked to refine the project’s Key Exploitable Results, clarifying what the project will ultimately deliver and the pathways for taking those results forward. The collaborative format of the workshops proved particularly valuable, enabling partners to define concrete outputs and leave Athens with a clearer, more unified direction.

The post CulturalRoad partners meet in Athens to review progress and align on next steps appeared first on Cultural Road.

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

The post CulturalRoad at RTR Conference 2026: Shaping the future of equitable CCAM appeared first on Cultural Road.