The climate change as a global challenge for our planet fosters the international community to look for ways to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gases. Urban areas try to make their ecological footprint smaller. Regarding urban transport planning the main priority is to reduce cities’ car- dependency and give priority to public transport. The purpose of this project is to create a web-based geographic information system (GIS), a “smart-bus” application product that could improve feeder bus service around regional train stations and make this service more reliable, quick, cheap and comfortable for its users. The aim of the product is to improve public transport effectiveness and create an attractive car use alternative. The new application will allow the adaptation of feeder buses to regional train operation, even in cases of delays, to eliminate waiting times of passengers when changing mode, from train to bus and vice versa. Another advantage for passengers with the new application is the adaptation of the bus routes to their needs. Between the given alternative routes, the bus through this application will be able to choose those which minimize the total travel time of its passengers taking also into account the walking time between the bus stop and their final destination. This service is expected to encourage the combined use of buses and regional trains with benefits to the economy and the environment. It shall be noted that such a product can have an impact in the world market. This service application will be developed by an academic institution, namely the National Technical University of Athens (School of Rural and Surveying Engineering), two private companies, AMCO and AETHON and one regional public bus operator, Korinthos KTEL. The University will focus on the characteristics of the new bus service and explore – through qualitative and quantitative social research methods- all the relevant attributes to increase the quality of the service. The two private companies will use the research results to develop the software and build marketing strategies in order to support the take-up of the new application. The bus operator will run the pilot project to test the new application. The pilot project will be implemented in the area of Korinthos in Peloponnese Region, in Greece. Two neighboring cities; Korinthos and Loutraki, which form a unified polycentric urban territory will be the testbed of the application. This area is served by a regional train, connecting Korinthos with the metropolitan area of Athens. The area presents several research advantages in terms of its current car-dependency and is ideal for showcasing the benefits of the application. The future creation of a new railway link to connect Korinthos and Loutraki will add new opportunities for the combined operation train – bus in a larger area. The new feeder bus service will offer a new reliable, cheap and fast combined transport solution for the regional train. It will bring new customers and generate higher revenue for Korinthos KTEL. The improved bus service will also foster economic activity in the area and will reduce environmental impact of transportation in Korinthos. The successful implementation of the new GIS software in the pilot area is expected to allow for its expansion in Greece and abroad and thus contribute to the global effort to increase the modal share of public transport.

The proposed project refers to a first phase of importing drone and cargo bike into freight transport to meet some distinct needs, either in terms of transport speed or protection of some protected, sensitive environmental parts of the city. It is almost certain that at a later stage, when their technology has evolved, drone and cargo bike will be used to meet more conventional transportation needs because they will be able to carry more weight and thus serve more concentrated missions. Then, the transit centers will be the first intermediate destination in the transport chain until the final recipient. Conversely, in the first phase of light, therefore more personalized transport, small take-off / landing bases could operate, where the transfer between drone and cargo bike would take place. These bases will be on line with the transit center. The project aims to:

(a) investigate issues arising from the use of drones and bicycles in freight transport in urban places with various urban and traffic characteristics,

(b) produce a model that calculates cost, energy consumption and travel times using these means of transport per kilometer under different conditions,

(c) create a software that will include data on the location of take-off / landing points, sender and receiver addresses and landline characteristics.

The overall objective of MobiDataLab is to propose to the mobility stakeholders (transport organising authorities, operators, industry, innovators) a replicable methodology and sustainable tools that foster the development of a data sharing culture in Europe and beyond. MobiDataLab is based on a continuous co-development of knowledge and of technical solutions for data sharing with high involvement of all data producers and consumers in the transport and mobility landscape. This will be put in action through problem-solving oriented Labs, the collection and analysis of advice and recommendations of experts and supporting cities/regions/clusters/associations aided by the incremental construction of a cross-thematic knowledge base and of a cloud-based service platform, which will federate access and usage of data sharing resources.

MobiDataLab leverages on the legal, technological and economic opportunities to:

• present mobility data providers with recommendations on how to improve the quality, accessibility and usability of their data – how to describe them, how to store them safely and securely, how to make them available, easy to find, and understandable;
• encourage the reuse of these data and foster users’ trust in the data, contributing to the development and promotion of open tools to the community of innovators;
• bring together mobility stakeholders (both data providers and data consumers) to find innovative solutions to concrete problems, using open data as a tool.

The MobiDataLab consortium is formed by 10 partners from Industry, Research, Academia, Consultancy and Governance sectors, located in 7 countries. The consortium shares a common view on the values and benefits of open data and open source principles for fostering independence and uptake by communities. The MobiDataLab yet young-and-emerging group of supporting parties allows to consider replicability of approach and results in many more countries, including beyond EU

Within IP4 more than 10 projects have created a wide array of technologies that tackles carious aspects of traveler experience. Those technologies tackle the interoperability of Transport Service Providers’ (TSPs) services, travel shopping, booking & ticketing, trip tracking, travel companion technologies and business analytics. Various tools that have been tested in various locations around Europe retrieved user feedback and improved upon the feedback. Today, IP4 has a large toolset of proven technologies that need to go to the next level and be implemented in large scale products.

IP4MaaS will assist IP4 projects to demonstrate the technologies at an unprecedented level: 6 different locations in Europe including more than 10 transport operators (Public Transport and Mobility-as-a-Service), authorities and agencies. IP4MaaS will develop the scenarios for the demonstrations and a thorough assessment strategy for the demonstrations that tackles both the performance of the demonstrations as well as the impact of the technologies on users and the environment in urban and suburban setups. IP4MaaS will create strategic plans for the demonstrations that will be updated in two iterations leading to two demonstration phases. Furthermore, the project will provide recommendations regarding the promotion and transferability of the technologies to other locations in Europe. IP4MaaS will organise and monitor one of the largest demonstrations of technologies in European projects’ history and expects its findings to be used as a baseline for future demonstrations and testing that involves a diverse group of demo partners.

The project’s goal is to create an online platform, that will connect the companies (through their representatives) that want to exchange not useful products, or unused equipment or even services. This platform will also provide the opportunity to recycle or even donate to charity or other organizations. In this way, the platform will try to tackle the problem of unused resources and unused equipment of companies and especially in the construction field.

The project will analyze and describe the needs of the market and the users, and the architectural design of the platform (the modules, requirements and functionalities of EFFICIOUS). At the same time, a smart algorithm will be developed in order to match demand and supply. Then the implementation of the platform will be initialized, the corresponding database will be created, and the interface will be configured. Finally, a pilot will be carried out with the help of construction companies and a feasibility study along with a business plan will be produced.

The creation of the platform aims to re-use surplus products or services through their exchange, aiming at enhancing the circular economy, waste management and reducing energy footprint of companies. EFFICIOUS’s goal is to offer a holistic solution that will generate profit for the companies by creating value for unused products and thus reducing the companies’ costs.

Visit efficious: https://efficious.com/

Collaboration is a concept that carries heavy weight when discussing multimodal trips of passengers. For Transport Service Providers (TSPs), it is a method to facilitate a door-to-door (D2D) journey, which is a basic goal set out by the EU in the 2011 Transport White Paper. However, collaboration is a very generic concept that is hard to define. For SYN+AIR, collaboration among modes relates to data sharing among TSPs in the scope of facilitating a seamless D2D journey. The main objective of SYN+AIR is to generate common goals for TSPs that will justify data sharing, facilitating the user to execute a seamless D2D journey. SYN+AIR employs a partially participatory (in terms of validation) and partially, technology driven approach (in terms of defining data flow among TSPs) that is user-centric; customer journeys will be generated for the entire multimodal chain and SYN+AIR will analyse how those journeys can be facilitated through improved planning and operations activities (following the ATFCM phases: strategic, pre-tactical, tactical) powered by data sharing. For the analysis, air travelling is placed in the epicentre; all multimodal chains consider the usage of air travelling. Consequently, a “Smart Contracts Framework” will be generated based on a Business Process Model. Smart Contracts are agreements among TSPs that define data sharing criteria (scope, parties’ obligations, contract’s time span and fulfilment criteria). TSPs can use the agreements for structuring a collaboration scheme with another TSP either strategically or tactically. Data generated by Travel Companion apps will also be analysed in the context of enriching the Smart Contracts Framework allowing TSPs to improve their activities and execute informed decisions. Finally, SYN+AIR will determine what additional recommendations can be provided to travellers based on the execution of a Smart Contract.

AETHON is the initiator of the SYN+AIR project idea.

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) schemes can be seen as disruptive initiatives with great potential that provide a tailored mobility package to travellers. However, due to challenges such as public/private mobility integration, information handling and sharing, service interoperability and scalability requirements, specific actions to ensure the successful uptake of these schemes are necessary. New technologies play a crucial role in the large-scale uptake of MaaS schemes, and ensure a stable business operation of these schemes at a global level. Interoperability Framework (IF), Travel Shopping, Booking and Ticketing, Validation, Payment and Trip Tracking are technologies developed within the Shift2Rail Innovation Programme 4 (IP4). All these technologies aim to meet the engineering challenges associated with the uptake of MaaS schemes.

The Shift2MaaS project aims to support the uptake of the IP4 technologies and overcome the technical and non-technical barriers for the adoption of new MaaS platforms. Shift2MaaS aims to support the introduction of Shift2Rail IP4 technology within the MaaS context by analysing the needs of the different stakeholders involved. To achieve that Shift2MaaS will demonstrate the benefits of IP4 through demo sites (Lisbon, Malaga and Central East Corridor). The lessons learned will be made available and shared with Shift2Rail IP4. This means that Shift2MaaS builds on and adds to previous projects by making the connection to real environments.

AETHON is one of the key technical partners of the consortium.

AETHON has received funding under the “Start-up Entrepreneurship” program of the PA 2014-2020 program. The program is co-funded by the European Social Fund and the Ministry of Economy and Development, Greece. More information about the action can be found here.

ATHENA is a garage project of AETHON aimed at reinventing the way we interact and communicate with our vehicle. In today’s non-automated vehicles, the interaction is simple, press the pedal – it accelerates, turn the wheel – it turns. But what happens in the vehicle of tomorrow, when automation gives your hands the opportunity to wander off and do something else besides grabbing the wheel?

It is simple, one might say, if something happens or I want the car to stop, I regain control simply by grabbing the wheel. That is true, it is possible, but there can be multiple unforeseen problems:

• Drivers of automated vehicles regain control in a consistent and stabilized manor after around 40 sec (Merat et al., 2014)
• Another study showed that drivers can take from 2 to more than 25 seconds to regain control, which is a significant time frame especially at high speed. Also, researchers noted that “Significantly longer control transition times were found between driving with and without secondary tasks” (Eriksson & Stanton, 2017)

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Automated cars are only starting to appear. In full automation we would not need to take control; vehicles got it covered for us. But then, what is the necessity for having a wheel? How will we communicate with the vehicle?

The Society for Automotive Engineers has developed a standard of 5 automation levels. Level 0 is no automation while level 5 is complete automation. This standard, also adopted by NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, USA – https://www.nhtsa.gov/technology-innovation/automated-vehicles-safety), states that at level 4 and level 5, driver intervention becomes optional. This means that drivers will cease to exist, no wheel or formal driving training will be required. However, interaction between the “passenger” and the vehicle, cannot cease to exist. We need to tell our car where to go and how to get there, make stops if necessary or if we wish to. We should not only be talking about smart and autonomous vehicles but also for informed and empowered operators that will replace the driver concept. Athena aims to empower those operators with voice control.

A major problem of tourism in Greece is seasonality. The tourist product that is mainly offered is “sun and sea”. Organized mass tourism usually neglects history and civilization, a matter that makes the strategic search for alternative touristic activities that are attractive throughout the year, a crucial task. Such a form of tourism is cycling tourism that is in high demand by European tourists.

To enhance cycling tourism, the proposal of TOPOs aims at creating a) a certification system for touristic companies with respect to the friendliness of their services for bicyclists and b) an interactive online cycling tourism guide for promoting certified businesses. The evaluation of companies for receiving the certification will focus on the companies’ ability to provide bicyclists with required services. The online cycling tourism guide will provide information about the certified businesses, the surrounding areas and information concerning the difficulty, safety and scenery of the bike routes that connect the certified businesses and points of interest, thus delivering a new promotion tool for the companies.

The project includes a scientific research part which will focus on the definition of the criteria to be considered when assessing business to receive the certification and for the route assessment and a technological – commercial part that concerns the development of the product that will focus on user – friendliness and commercialization.