During two days, the project’s activities and outcomes achieved during the first year of the project were presented and discussed. In addition, the work ahead was planned. The meeting was also a space to discuss in-depth the TANGENT functionalities in each case study, including their scope, goals, integration aspects and the upcoming testing activities. Various topics were presented: – Various activities related to the TANGENT Forum and the Advisory Board are in progress. – The data catalogues and data API for Rennes, Manchester, Athens are ready. – Surveys for mobility/ transport users and the Google timeline trajectories have been launched and feedback gathered. Development of the Travel Choice Module has been done. – There are initial results for supply/ demand forecasting. The anomalous event detection module is in progress. – There are initial results of Synchronization of PT and traffic control. – The second release of the overall system architecture is ready, and the consortium is working on the user experience& interface dashboard. – A first release of the Smart Infrastructure Classification Index is ready.

The 10th& 11th of May SYNCHROMODE consortium partners have meet in Thessaloniki (Greece), hosted by CERTH-HIT, coordinator of the project. DeustoTech participates in SYNCHROMODE as technical manager, and leads the workpackage of artificial intelligence for optimizing the traffic management operations. SYNCHROMODE aims to develop data driven ICT tools for improving the management of transport operations from a multimodal perspective and managing the overall transport network as a whole. SYNCHROMODE will provide to transport managers new predictive and network optimization capabilities for balancing the transport supply and demand, and capable of reacting to different types of events. The project will research in transport network supply& demand modelling, simulation and prediction of future states; optimization techniques for multimodal traffic optimisation, standards for data collection and storage; new governance models in transport management and new approaches for defining KPI for assessing the overall solution.

What has been achieved in the project?

1 – In the case studies, the user needs identification system requirements, TANGENT methodology, functionalities and their mapping in the cities are defined. The multi-actor cooperation models as well as the policy and regulatory framework in traffic management were delivered:

• Multi-actor co-creation strategies for each Case study.
• NTM needs assessment and system requirements.
• Multi-actor cooperation models for NTM. First release
• Policy, regulatory and planning framework for TNM. First release

2 – The user experience and user interface dashboard design, data volumes management, data models definition, review of dependencies between modules are being completed for the case studies. The first version of the overall system architecture was released.

3 – The data catalogue for each case study are currently being elaborated, but the TANGENT meta data profile, data sharing governance model are already defined:

• Data requirements and available data sources
• Data-sharing governance model

4 – A state-of-the-art literature has been completed on travel behaviour modelling, traffic predictions and simulation, and transport network optimization:

• Travel behaviour: State-of-the-art, current and future mobility patterns
• Report on the relevant state-of-the-art approaches for traffic predictions and simulations
• Analysis of current approaches in optimization of transport network management

5 – An overview of Transport Network Optimization problems and design of optimization models has been finalised.

6 – The consortium is currently working on supply and demand forecasting concept and methods, as well as on the implementation of techniques for the optimization models.

7 – Surveys for mobility/ transport users have been launched and gathered, while the analysis and implementation of travel behaviour models is ongoing.

8 – Survey on arbitration models is ongoing to identify cooperation patterns and stakeholders’ priorities.

9 – The Advisory Board was launched and includes 11 external members.

10 – Project communication, dissemination and management ongoing: project branding, dissemination material ready, website and social media channels up and running. Management basics, project templates, and ethical aspects framework in TANGENT defined including new release of Project Management Handbook and Data Management Plan.

A site visit of the Rennes use case

We visited the Rennes case study “Route de Lorient”: a national road which combines segregated cycling lanes, pedestrian paths, dedicated bus lanes, lanes for private cars, lorries and trucks, and more.

TANGENT will test multiple traffic management scenarios in Rennes:

• Planned scenarios: football matches at the Roazhon Park (main stadium) & Friday evenings before long weekends and holidays.
• Unplanned scenarios: road works, incidents, accidents, etc.
• A virtual scenario: what if there was a dedicated lane for carpooling?

Top 3 reasons the project is focusing on the “Route de Lorient”:

– To reduce the heavy congestion and air pollution
– To improve traffic caused by the matches at the stadium
– To enhance the overlapping fluxes entering and leaving Rennes (freight, leisure, business, etc.).

 

A two-day CONDUCTOR General Assembly was organised by Deep Blue in Rome, Italy, 21-22 March 2023. We worked together to finalise the specification and needs for the future CCAM Association and outlined the next steps towards the successful realisation of the project. During the workshops on the second day, we explored the use cases from the perspective of the different users and worked on the detailing of the overall system architecture. We identified all significant impacts, the interactions of the architecture components and the required data sources.

On 15/12/2022, the University of Deusto held a highly anticipated robotics hackathon, as part of the activities of the ACROBA Project, attracting 6 teams of 4 participants each. The event, which was open to professionals and engineering students, challenged participants to develop innovative projects in the field of robotics using the ACROBA platform.

The teams worked over the course of several days to bring their ideas to life, using state-of-the-art robotics technology and receiving mentorship from experts in the field. The projects presented covered a wide range of topics, from handwriting simulation, tic-tac-toe playing, or multiple block manipulation.

The judging panel, composed of industry professionals and technology experts from the University of Deusto and Vicomtech, had the difficult task of selecting the three most outstanding projects. In the end, the winning team were awarded 4 kits of NVIDIA-based ROS-powered Jetson robots, a popular tool for developing artificial intelligence applications.

The ACROBA Project robotics hackathon at the University of Deusto was a resounding success, showcasing the creativity and technical skills of young talent in the field of robotics.

TRA is the foremost European transport event that covers all transport modes and all aspects of mobility. TRA2022, themed “Moving together – reimagining mobility worldwide”, brings together experts from around the world to discuss the newest innovations and the future of mobility and transport and links to overseas transport professionals.

TRA offers a great venue for researchers, policy makers and industry representatives to get together and contribute to the discussion on how research and innovation can reshape the transport and mobility system.

In this context, Dr Antonio Masegosa and Dr Leire Serrano were invited to share their expertise and experiences as TANGENT project coordinators, in the “A snapshot to the traffic management of the future”. There, they had to opportunity to examine the future of network and traffic management, and the ways it will shape cities. They discussed how to tackle new technological, societal, operational, business and governance challenges and opportunities. In addition, the European Commission, together with the 4FRONT cluster of European funded projects (ORCHESTRA, TANGENT, DIT4TRAM, FRONTIER) and the HARMONY project jointly presented further topics including System engineering architecture, Resilience, Trustworthiness, Data sharing, Governance, User behaviour and acceptance, multimodality, upscaling etc. to implement the network and traffic management of the future.

The discussion with other experts and sharing experiences with TANGENT sister projects were very interesting and fruitful with a lot of ideas for further collaboration and developments to reach a more sustainable world.

TANGENT’s achievements in 7 key points 1. In the four pilot cities, the transport agents and user needs were identified and the system requirements defined. This was achieved through two rounds of interactive in-person and online workshops with transport operators, local government officials and technical partners in each case study city. 2. Data catalogues and requirements were defined in collaboration with the case study cities. 3. State-of-the-art and literature reviews were completed on travel behaviour modelling, traffic predictions and simulation, and transport network optimization. 4. Surveys for mobility or transport users were designed for the four case study cities. 5. Progress was made in the identification of methods for supply and demand forecasting, formulation of Transport Network Optimization problems, and the overall technical architecture definition. 6. TANGENT’s identity was established (logo, website, social media, etc.) and consortium members attended European mobility events to represent the project and its results (e.g. hEART in Leuven, ConnectingEurope days in Lyon, Urban Mobility Days in Brno). 7. Project management documents were established including project templates, ethical frameworks and a Data Management Plan.

We are glad to share our new survey article, built upon the collaboration between the University of Deusto and the University Austral of Chile. Both were funded by Fundación IBERDROLA, ATELIER, and WHY projects.

This thriving research collaboration produced two papers, the first paper, PART I covered aspects like Grid connections, Distribution topologies, and Voltage standardization of low-voltage DC microgrids (LVDC) renewable-based (published in the top-ranked renewable list of journals, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews).

The second paper, PART II covers key aspects for a successful massification of Low Voltage Direct Current Microgrids, such as Converters, protections, and controllers renewable-based (published in the well-known Elsevier journal, Energy Report).

Both papers analyse the challenges and possible solutions that these kinds of microgrids have to tackle. These publications are complementarian, both closed the circle open over capital aspects of the distributed generation, speeding up the use of renewable sources. Besides, the novelty of these survey papers not rely only on technical issues but also on social issues, like energy poverty, inequalities produced by the lack of electricity, etc.

On the 21st of March, the first TANGENT workshop with end-users was organized in the heart of Lisbon, to gather inputs from key local mobility stakeholders. Lisbon is one of the four pilot cities of the project and they will improve integrated urban and interurban transport management using C-ITS (Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems).

The workshop brought together local transport stakeholders and TANGENT partners, which includes local governments (Rennes, Greater Manchester, Lisbon and Athens), universities, technical partners, and other organisations. Together, they co-defined a vision for Lisbon, highlighted preliminary features of the local transport system (technological design and information systems, organisational structures, decision-making procedures, etc.) and drew a way forward.

Local government representatives from the four pilot cities had the opportunity to meet in person and exchange knowledge, ideas, and enthusiasm on their way forward within TANGENT. The supporting partners will work hand in hand with the cities, until August 2024, to find integrated and tailored solutions to create enhanced data processing techniques for dynamic management of multimodal transport networks.

This is the first of several workshops led by Rupprecht Consult. The next one will be held in Rennes on March 29th and the following in Manchester on April 28th.

On the 21-23rd of March, the TANGENT Consortium had a chance to exchange ideas in person for the first time since the project started in September 2021. The meeting was held at the Carris Museum showcasing the history of public transport in Lisbon. The meeting was preceded by a workshop with local end-users, as part of a series of workshops with the cities participating in the project.

The project officer from CINEA (The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency) opened the meeting and defined main points of interest from the European Commission’s side. After the introduction from the University of Deusto, who coordinates TANGENT, the Work Package leaders presented their progress and suggestions for next steps.

The fruitful meeting gave many insights and ideas, allowing the partners to get an overview and align actions, especially on the technical aspects of the project.

The next consortium meeting is expected to take place on the 13-14th of September in Bilbao, Spain.

After 40 months LOGISTAR project has come to an end. Last 22^nd September, backed by the Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Systems conference (HAIS 2021), partners came together on a hybrid session at the University of Deusto to disseminate the main outcomes of the project and testing results by project stakeholders.

The event was split into two sessions: a Technical session chaired by Enrique Onieva Caracuel from the University of Deusto, where the components and architecture of the LOGISTAR platform were presented, and an industrial session, chaired by Andrew Palmer from Preston Solutions, where partners discussed the potential business opportunities for the LOGISTAR platform.

Within the technical session, speakers from different work packages presented the approaches followed and the modules developed in the scope of the project. Jurgen Jakobitsch (Semantic-web) presented the architecture and implementation of the data gathering and harmonization layer. Federico Toffano and Diego Carraro (Insight-Centre) detailed the algorithms implemented to provide the system with predictions, regarding both times and preferences. Iñigo López (Universidad de Deusto) showed the algorithms used for the global optimization module of the solution. Dave de Jonge (CSIC) introduced the methods in automated negotiation for collaborative transportation. Finally, Christian Gengenbach (Software AG) and Reinhard Rust (DBH) presented the overall architecture, putting together all the modules and functionalities developed by the consortium.

In the industrial session, Andrew Palmer from Preston Solutions delivered a presentation explaining how the functional requirements for LOGISTAR had been produced from interviews with 22 companies across Europe. This was followed by a demonstration of the LOGISTAR system based on the testing that had taken place for each of the living labs given by the three companies involved in the integration of the system (Christian Gengenbach from Software AG, Reinhard Rust from DBH and Gaetano Formisano from Genegis). Each of the stakeholder partners involved in these living labs discussed their supply chain operations and the outcomes from the testing process. They were introduced by Miguel van Asch from Ahlers who coordinated all the testing activities and discussed the results of the virtual living lab. This was followed by Sally Wright of Nestle and Paul Stothard of pladis who discussed living lab 1, Guido Piccoli of Codognotto discussing living lab 2 and Michael Gierloff of CHEP on living lab 3. All stakeholder partners agreed that the development of the system and testing process had been a very rewarding experience with new knowledge gained by all parties.

After the dissemination event, the project partners hold the internal closure meeting to take stock of the advances in the project and to discuss the last steps for the conclusion of the project. This was also the opportunity to thank each other for the dedication and the efforts made over these years, with the compromise to look for cooperation opportunities to take the LOGISTAR platform to a higher TRL.

 

More information about the LOGISTAR project can be found here: https://deustotech.deusto.es/project/logistar/ and https://logistar-project.eu/

On the 11th of June, WHY held the Open Day of the project in the EU Green Week 2021. The event has been an opportunity to engage with all stakeholders and interested citizens on how we can work together to make the ambition for a zero pollution and toxic-free environment a reality.

In the event different stakeholders and policy makers discussed about Energy System Models that allow testing and selecting better strategies for fighting pollution caused by the energy sector.

The event programme was structured in three main blocks, and it was moderated by Chris Merveille from GoiEner. In the Opening session, Rosa Santibañez Gruber, Vice-rector for Research and Transfer at the University of Deusto, gave the institutional welcome. It was followed by the speech from Maciej Grzeszczyk from the European Commission-DG ENER, on the Importance of Energy System Models for Energy Policy Making. Afterwards, Nives della Valle (European Commission, Joint Research Centre – JRC), keynote speaker of the event, presented “The Importance of Including Behaviors’ Aspects in Climate Policy”. Lastly, Cruz E. Borges, from the University of Deusto, and coordinator of WHY project, gave a short overview of WHY project.

Next, an Open discussion on “What can Energy System Models do to help in reducing the pollution? 5 Use Cases from WHY project” followed with the participation of different project partners: Thomas Nacht (4ward Energy Research), Leire Astigarraga (GoiEner), Cruz E. Borges, Panagiotis Fragkos (E-3 Modelling), Francesco Dalla Longa (TNO). The partners presented the approach of the 5 use cases in WHY: the Gniebing Use Case, the Goiener Use Case, Energy Community Use Case, European Use Case, and the Global Use Case. These use cases not only have quite different geographic scope (ranging from regional perspective to worldwide) but also cover a wide range of topics of interest for different stakeholders.

Lastly, the Panel Discussion focused on WHY Toolkit, with the participation of Thomas Nacht, Carlos Quesada and Cruz E. Borges. Thomas Nacht presented the concept of WHY Toolkit, the process for defining the requirements and parameters of the tools with the feedback of the stakeholders, the toolkit architecture. Carlos Quesada, on the other hand, presented the methodology and results obtained for analysing users behavior on electricity consumption at household level. For this, different datasets of energy consumption of different European countries have been processed and creating a narrative description of the personas behind each behaviour profile.

Finally, Cruz E. Borges presented his view on “Why do people invest time and money in the energy transition?”. He explained that WHY project has worked on studying the decision-making process for energy consumption, and trying to rationalize this process by building up a causal model. He explained the methodology for building it up, covering the speculative scenarios considered, the determinants, etc. Lastly, Cruz invited the audience to actively participate in the experiment, by completing this form.

The presentations and videos of the event are available in this link.