The ERTICO Partnership met in Brussels last week for two events of strategic and practical importance. On December 3, the latest in the Focus On series was dedicated to Boosting ITS deployment for the European transport network. The following day, the eight sectors of ERTICO’s Partnership met in three groups for cross-sector exchanges on topics of common interest. The overarching goal of the two days’ activities was to encourage collective thinking and in-depth discussions leading to shared understanding, collaboration, and alignment as Europe works toward a truly integrated mobility ecosystem.
Focus on boosting ITS deployment for the European transport network
Last year’s revision of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) Regulation marked a major milestone in Europe’s commitment to building a sustainable, resilient and better-connected transport network. With ambitious urban mobility targets, the Regulation places cities and Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) at the heart of the EU’s future transport system. A key new development is the requirement for all 431 urban nodes to adopt and monitor comprehensive Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) by 2027, covering the entire FUA. Member States must also collect standardised urban mobility data related to safety, sustainability, and accessibility to improve the performance of the trans-European network and support evidence-based planning. By 2030, the creation of multimodal passenger hubs will further advance seamless first and last-mile connectivity, integrating public transport and active mobility into a cohesive European mobility ecosystem.
Within the context of this emerging landscape, the ERTICO Partners discussed how urban nodes and inter-urban corridors can be better connected, explored governance and business models that support scalable ITS deployment, exchanged insights about ERTICO’s innovation platforms making a difference, and showcased some of their own innovations that are moving beyond projects and pilots to real world deployment to accelerate integrated mobility services across Europe.
City Moonshot setting the stage for Europe's urban mobility mandate
Among the nearly 300 cities and regions interviewed worldwide by ERTICO’s City Moonshot initiative are 93 urban nodes of the TEN-T. These interviews capture a helpful, ground-level picture of what cities need, where they struggle, and how ready they are to contribute to the TEN-T ambitions. Three key trends emerge from the information collected:
- Cities are committed to progress. The majority is expanding active mobility and electrification measures and 95% recognise the importance of data sharing.
- Cities face structural constraints. Challenges include limited charging infrastructure, inconsistent Urban Vehicle Access Regulation (UVAR) implementation, varying technical readiness, and gaps in digitalisation. Urban Air Mobility (UAM) remains poorly integrated into policy and planning, with most cities hesitant or unprepared.
- Governance, capacity, and skills deficits persist. This is particularly true for digitalisation, around data standards, GDPR compliance, interoperability, and advanced traffic management.
With the looming SUMP deadline for urban nodes, these gaps represent real risks to implementation. The City Moonshot findings reveal that cities may be ambitious, but many lack the technical, financial, or organisational capacity to meet new European obligations without strong support.
Seamless mobility along the TEN-T requires not just capable cities and regions but also aligned national frameworks. ERTICO is taking the urban context of the City Moonshot to a wider context. In a very timely initiative, it has launched the National Moonshot, working closely with associations such as CEDR.
Seamless mobility integration in Functional Urban Areas and the TEN-T
Functional Urban Areas are critical gateways to the TEN-T as this is where long-distance, regional, and urban mobility meet. Ensuring seamless mobility across these interfaces is essential for meeting the objectives within the EU’s twin digital and green transition, improving multimodal accessibility, and enabling efficient freight and passenger movement. But how prepared are those responsible?
Cities, regions, and industry must work jointly to integrate planning, data, and infrastructure to make mobility within FUAs and across the TEN-T truly seamless. There are a number of challenges to overcome, including those of governance, multimodal integration, data interoperability, digital tools, and public–private collaboration for sustainable and user-centric mobility.
The panel discussion, moderated by special invitee Jürgen Kettner of the European Commission’s DG MOVE, highlighted that beyond the lack of resources, funding and infrastructure some crucial issues must be addressed:
- Governance is one of the biggest obstacles as well as the key to unlocking integration. Jurisdictional fragmentation continues to impede coherent planning across FUAs. Joint strategies, shared incentives, and multi-level governance models are of great need.
- Digitalisation is essential for seamless integration. Interoperable data standards, shared indicators, and secure, real-time information flows underpin every aspect of integrated mobility. But current practices remain inconsistent, and many cities lack the enabling architecture, struggle with disparate standards (e.g., DATEX II, GTFS, MDS) and inconsistent private–public data reciprocity.
- Multimodality requires orchestration, not co-location. Passenger and freight flows must be digitally synchronised across modes and operators. Multimodal hubs must evolve from physical co-location to operational integration, backed by digital tools, shared data, and aligned service planning.
- Public–private collaboration must evolve. Industry and cities increasingly depend on each other to deploy CCAM, smart logistics, electrification, and digital services. Collaboration must shift beyond the purely transactional relationships toward shared responsibility and shared value.
Innovation is not lacking in European cities and regions; the challenge rather is building integrated systems across administrative and sectoral boundaries.
Platforms to build the integrated, data-driven mobility ecosystem
ERTICO’s seven innovation platforms have been playing an important role in supporting the creation and functioning of interoperable, digitally enabled mobility ecosystems. Three platforms were put under the spotlight during the Focus On. Their mission also intersects with the objectives of the TEN-T Regulation.
- TM2.0 (Traffic Management 2.0) drives the evolution from traditional, authority-led traffic management to a collaborative, data-driven model where public authorities and private mobility actors exchange information in real time and co-create traffic strategies. This cooperative approach is fundamental for FUAs, where traffic flows extend across multiple jurisdictions and modes. TM2.0’s work on common interfaces, trust mechanisms, and public–private coordination directly supports seamless connectivity between urban nodes and inter-urban corridors.
- DFRS (Data for Road Safety) brings together OEMs, service providers, and authorities to enable the large-scale exchange of safety-related traffic information. By establishing harmonised data formats, governance principles, and secure data flows, DFRS contributes to a safer, more resilient European transport network. Its focus on real-time, high-quality safety data is particularly valuable for CCAM deployment and for managing complex FUA environments where rapid incident detection is crucial.
- EAVP (Enhancing Automated Valet Parking) explores automated parking as a practical, near-term automated mobility service. By developing use cases, testing frameworks, and deployment models, EAVP supports the creation of efficient multimodal hubs, which is a TEN-T requirement, and frees urban space for sustainable modes. Automated valet parking can become a key enabler of seamless first and last-mile connections, especially in dense FUAs.
The ERTICO Academy and the journey from use cases to deployment
The deployment of mobility innovations is more often than not constrained by unclear business cases, fragmented responsibilities, and limited institutional capacity. Using business, governance, and innovation modelling frameworks inspired by Horizon Europe’s MetaCCAZE project, ERTICO Academy provided a structured way to address those barriers. The approach lies in modelling not just the product or service, but also the ecosystem required to deliver it. While discussing governance, business, and operational models in a workshop setting for three use cases (Suburban logistics hubs; Connected vehicle services; and Dynamic vehicle-to-grid charging), it became abundantly clear that such long-term operating models may be complicated to construct but they are crucial to the successful implementation of mobility innovation. Innovation will only lead to mobility improvement when the ecosystem around it, including authorities, operators, infrastructure, and service providers, aligns.
Focus on ERTICO Partners: A cross-section of Europe’s emerging mobility solutions
That no single organisation, discipline or sector can deliver the seamless, digitally enabled transport system that the revised TEN-T Regulation envisions is unmistakably clear. Achieving interoperability across Functional Urban Areas, deploying connected and automated mobility, securing digital and physical infrastructure, and managing increasingly complex multimodal networks all require many different kinds of expertise working in parallel and in coordination.
During the Focus On, six ERTICO Partners presented some of their individual achievements and ambitions in urban and interurban mobility. Their pitches illustrate the breadth of innovation underway across Europe’s mobility ecosystem spanning digital road safety data to airspace resilience, from cooperative vehicle-infrastructure systems to AI-based traffic management.
Joaquim Ferreira (Instituto de Telecomunicações) presented research on trustworthy and verifiable cooperation in CCAM, emphasising that cooperation between vehicles and infrastructure requires consensus, accountability and trust mechanisms in safety-critical situations. Using roadside sensing, collective perception, and extended sensing horizons, the work highlights how infrastructure can significantly improve automated driving reliability by reducing blind spots at intersections and complex locations. Dependable cooperation rooted in secure data, consensus, and redundancy will accelerate early deployment of automated mobility.
Ronald Adams (Rijkswaterstaat) outlined the Netherlands’ national digital mobility data framework, designed to support safer, cleaner and more efficient traffic management through high-quality, standardised and interoperable data. He presented the building blocks enabling this system: the National Road Traffic Data Portal (NDW), the National Access Point (NTM/NAP), the National Roads Database (NWB), and an intergovernmental governance structure coordinating work across all levels. A practical example of the maximum speed data chain illustrates how decisions by municipalities translate through national databases into navigation, OEM and MaaS applications, ensuring consistent information for drivers. This digital foundation is key for multimodal travel information, cross-border continuity and compliance with EU delegated acts.
Dr Robert Kölbl (Kapsch TrafficCom AG) presented Kapsch’s portfolio of cooperative ITS (C-ITS) solutions, highlighting the role of real-time communication between vehicles, infrastructure and other road users to enhance safety and efficiency. Using practical examples, such as warnings against roadworks collisions, he demonstrated the application of V2V and V2I communication in real operational contexts. He also shared a range of C-ITS use cases including accident zone alerts, weather warnings, emergency vehicle prioritisation, wrong-way driver alerts and road closures. Dr Kölbl placed these within Kapsch’s broader capabilities across traffic management systems, hardware, AI-driven technologies and adaptive control, showing how industry partners support both urban operations and inter-urban corridor management.
Patrick van Egmond (LuxMobility) introduced LuxMobility’s work on security, resilience and the management of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS). This is a topic of growing relevance as cities and FUAs grapple with airspace integration and safety challenges. LuxMobility supports governments and organisations with threat analysis, technology evaluation, operator training and red-teaming. He provided an overview of C-UAS threat types, from clueless hobby pilots to malicious actors, and demonstrated the full detection and mitigation chain (RF sensors, radar, EO/IR imaging, acoustic arrays, classification, tracking and countermeasures). This work contributes to safe, resilient mobility ecosystems in cities, particularly as drone services and innovative aerial mobility expand.
Peter Möhl (PTV Planung Transport Verkehr GmbH) showcased the award-winning #transmove Hamburg project, which integrates agent-based modelling, real-time simulation and machine learning to provide predictive traffic management in one of Europe’s largest metropolitan networks. With 1,700 signalised junctions in Hamburg, 200 of which are modelled in detail, the system evaluates all available signal plans every 10 minutes and recommends optimal settings to traffic managers. The platform predicts traffic conditions 15 and 30 minutes ahead, making it a powerful tool for preventing congestion and improving reliability. Recognised with the German Engineering Prize (Roads and Transport) 2025, #transmove reflects how AI and digital twins can significantly improve network performance in complex FUAs. The project also points toward future mobility operating systems requiring standardised data exchange and cross-sector innovation support.
Dr Bart Lannoo (Be-Mobile) presented Be-Mobile’s VRU (vulnerable road user) collision detection work, addressing the growing challenge of cyclist safety in rapidly densifying urban traffic. Using real-time positioning and lidar data, Be-Mobile’s system generates early digital warnings for drivers, alerting them to likely collisions with cyclists, especially in blind-spot or complex intersection scenarios. This work forms part of the broader Be-Warned ecosystem, which integrates data from OEMs, driver apps, road authorities, NAPs and real-time traffic sources to produce intelligent, targeted safety messages (e.g., wrong-way drivers, slippery roads, roadworks, stopped vehicles, emergency vehicles approaching). These capabilities demonstrate how digital services can enhance safety and support cities in meeting TEN-T and SUMP objectives for protected, multimodal travel environments.
These presentations bear witness to how, within the ERTICO Partnership, research, industry, public authorities, and infrastructure operators are tackling the technical and operational challenges to support cities, strengthens corridors, and bring the TEN-T vision closer to operational reality.
Curious about our European foothold and initiatives? Take a closer look at the ERTICO Partnership video and explore more of the many opportunities awaiting you at the ITS European Congress 2026 in Istanbul (27-29 April).