ERTICO’s partnership projects and team achieved a highly successful showing at the Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2026, held from 18 to 21 May in Budapest, Hungary. As Europe's flagship transport research and innovation conference co-organised by the European Commission, this year’s edition, “Re-Generation in Transport", emphasised the collective call for renewal in response to social, environmental, and technological challenges, focusing on engaging the next generation of thinkers, innovators, and leaders to drive transformation toward cleaner, more efficient, and forward-looking transport systems.
Throughout the four days, the ERTICO team engaged in strategic, high-level discussions across key pillars of the sector, showcasing how its extensive EU-funded project portfolio drives technical progress in accessibility, multimodal mobility, electrification, intelligent infrastructure, and traffic management innovation.
At the heart of the exhibition hall, ERTICO stand served as a joint presentation space for a lineup of EU-funded projects, including BoostEDIC M&L, SMARTIN, ePowerMove, ZEV-UP, INCLUSIVESPACES, CulturalRoad, SUM, and CORESpaces.
The booth also looked toward future milestones. Visitors met with the on-site team to secure early engagement opportunities to partner and exhibit at the ITS World Congress 2027 in Birmingham. The team previewed the congress's core thematic areas ahead of the official Call for Contributions, which is scheduled to open at the end of October 2026.
Shaping policy, data innovation, and workforce transformation
On Tuesday, 19 May, ERTICO CEO Joost Vantomme served as the Rapporteur for the Special Session "International Cooperation: One system, many actors," which mapped out strategies to coordinate European research and innovation with global partners across the United States, Asia, and Africa. On Wednesday, 20 May, he chaired the technical session "Workforce Shifts in Transport Policy," exploring how automation, digitalisation, and evolving mobility patterns are reshaping necessary skills and labour markets across the transport sector.
To address the resulting digital skills gap, he joined the high-level CEDR Workshop alongside the Governing Board of Europe’s National Road Authorities, rounding out his policy contributions as a panellist in iRAP’s Innovation Workshop, "Innovation in Data" (part of the “Future Ready Roads for Safe, Sustainable Mobility” side event), highlighting the vital role data ecosystems play in advancing infrastructure safety.
Digital Enforcement in Logistics
Digitalisation and regulatory compliance took center stage on Tuesday, 19 May, during a dedicated session in Pavilion C. Dr. Eusebiu Catana, Head of Transport for Logistics, delivered a keynote address titled: “From Data to Action: Enabling Paperless and Smart Digital Enforcement Compliance in Transport & Logistics” where he highlighted key operational lessons from a suite of pioneering EU projects, including BoostEDIC M&L, eFTI4ALL, eFTI4LIFE, SCUDO, 3DxVERSE, and O-CEI, focusing on how to smoothly integrate new European compliance mandates into existing transport logistics frameworks.
Paving the way for CCAM deployment and urban governance
Moving beyond localised pilot projects toward large-scale deployment, Dr Stéphane Dreher moderated the Special Session “Pathway to CCAM deployment in the EU.” This session brought together vital perspectives from cities, public authorities, industry leaders, and the European Commission to outline how Europe can effectively transition to connected, cooperative, and automated mobility on a grand scale.
A headline milestone of the event occurred on Wednesday, 20 May, at the European Commission booth as Dr Dreher, alongside representatives from DG RTD and the Joint Research Centre (JRC), officially launched the Global CCAM Observatory. Hosted on the CAD Knowledge Base platform (maintained by CCAMbassador), this neutral, science-based hub tracks global private-sector trends across the full CCAM technology stack.
This European Commission stand session, titled “CCAM tech trends & your chance to shape EUCAD 2027,” did more than debut the Observatory; it also featured the announcement of the upcoming EUCAD Symposium 2026 and the official launch of the call for sessions for the EUCAD 2027 Conference in Brussels, anchoring ERTICO’s central role in future EU planning.
Dr Dreher’s automated mobility itinerary concluded with presentations at two major side events: the International UCLA–CCAM Workshop (co-organised by CCAMbassador & SYNERGIES) and the CCAM Association General Assembly.
Agile Urban Governance
Complementing this macro-level approach, the conference spotlighted innovative governance models on the ground. John Paddington, ERTICO Head of PMO, presented insights from the MetaCCAZE project, detailing how the initiative is actively developing pioneering business innovation concepts and agile governance models specifically designed to help European cities successfully manage smart mobility transitions.
Integrating Aerial Services and Multimodal Ecosystems
Achieving truly resilient and seamless transport requires expanding mobility into new dimensions. On Wednesday, 20 May, Dr Vassilis Agouridas, Senior Manager and Co-chair of the IDI Platform, presented during the targeted session “New innovative air services for an integrated European multimodal transport ecosystem.”
Drawing from real-world case studies from the IDI Platform, Dr Agouridas discussed how drones and innovative aerial services can be seamlessly integrated to support more connected, sustainable, and highly resilient multimodal mobility networks across Europe. He illustrated how this airspace architecture builds highly resilient, sustainable, and connected multimodal urban networks, offering a blueprint that can be replicated across other European regions.
Spotlighting the EU-Funded Project Portfolio
Throughout the event, ERTICO’s presence was sustained by its robust project portfolio. Technical partners and researchers contributed valuable insights through specialised workshops, live demonstrations, and scientific papers.
- SUM: Hosted a dedicated event, “Shared Mobility: Measuring Impact, Shaping Policy,” featuring European cities sharing real-world data on bike-sharing, MaaS, car-sharing, and mobility hubs. The project’s technical partners also presented four scientific papers on advanced transport research.
- CulturalRoad: Highlighted equity in automation by presenting three distinct papers. Notable among them was “Accessibility as the Objective: An Equity-Focused Framework for CCAM Integration in Public Transport Networks,” alongside poster sessions addressing vulnerable road users.
- ZEV-UP: Focused on the electric vehicle transition, presenting three papers. These included an analysis of EV adoption in developing economies (focusing on South Africa) and the introduction of the Urban EV Adoption Charging Infrastructure Readiness Level (ECIRL) Index for policymakers.
- InclusiveSpaces: Brought practical, inclusive design directly to the ERTICO stand by showcasing the TripleTread trike, allowing attendees to test the accessible mobility solution firsthand alongside a dedicated technical poster exhibition.
- MACBETH: Displayed a physical charger mock-up at the European Commission booth, maintained a presence at the ALICE Village stand, and participated actively in the AEVETO session on Day 3.
- CAMBER: Featured at the iRAP Innovation Workshop. During the “Meet the Researchers” window, experts connected directly with attendees to explain CAMBER’s data-driven approach to improving safety on secondary and urban roads.
- SMARTIN: Stationed at the ERTICO booth, where Project Coordinator Anaïs Baudrier engaged directly with visitors to showcase the project’s latest work in creating safer, more resilient infrastructure.
- NEXUS: Focused heavily on the future of mass transit by contributing to technical sessions on metro innovation and smart urban mobility, while hosting its 3rd External Advisory Board (EAB) Workshop to validate next-generation metro deployment.
- EvoRoads: Presented a technical poster titled “Accelerometer-Based Pavement Condition Monitoring Using Connected Vehicle Data within a CCAM Framework,” proving how 5G vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication can help road authorities monitor surface defects in real time.
- FEDORA: Contributed to sessions on seamless urban mobility, presenting multiple frameworks for multimodal traffic management, intelligent congestion pricing, and integrated reservation systems.