As part of the European Green Deal, EU has established high goals targeting carbon free road transportation by 2050, with a 55% reduction by 2030. To reach this decarbonizing mobility goal multiple actions are needed, from novel technological developments in engines, connectivity, automation to new mobility services such as car-pooling, car sharing, etc. In addition, as part of the Vision Zero objective, EU plans to reduce road fatalities to zero by 2050. In this context, the smart mobility concept arises as a solution to simultaneously address traffic efficiency and safety. This concept envisions the use of state-of-the-art sensors and communication technologies toward a more efficient and safer road transportation network. The concept also foresees the development of autonomous vehicles support technologies, improved route planning strategies, and electric vehicle proliferation.

Benefitting from the worldwide expertise and RDI infrastructure from industry and academia brought by the partners involved, this specific RDI project comes with a broad and integrative approach to smart mobility and infrastructure based on three pillars: connected mobility, mobility as a service and management of intelligent infrastructure. So, different from any other works, this one approaches every main issue associated to climate-neutral smart mobility developing based on a stack model.

The work begins from the inter-vehicle communications aspects and envisions a development based on a scalable and energy-efficient network architecture capable of accommodating large-scale applications and high node density scenarios. Next, in order to provide the best compromise between reliability and energy efficiently, several wireless communications technologies will be implemented based on their strong points – weak points (SWOT) analysis. Here, based on the experience in VLC (Visible Light Communications), LoRa, and 5G-6G technologies an optimal technology sharing will be envisioned, guarantying communication quality of service parameters, while managing energy efficiency. The next component of the project is strongly focused on user experience and on human – infrastructure interaction, aiming on making the technology accessible and acceptable to users, providing them with wide access to intelligent routing solutions.

Following, the project is focused on supporting smart city implementation based on decision-making processes, which will be based on transforming urban infrastructure into intelligent infrastructure, and on its proper monitoring and management, including here electric vehicle infrastructure management. At the next level, the work will be focused on smart infrastructure upgrade and development with the purpose of enabling the further development of the concept. Last but not least, the final strong point of this project consists in the development of a smart mobility support mission which will provide highly qualified personnel and adequate support in further promoting the findings and the activities of this work. So, an important merit of this project comes from holistic approach, which addressed the problems from technological level ensuring the technical interconnectivity between the VANet (Vehicle Ad-hoc Network) nodes, analyzing the data and providing an advanced route planning service, managing the intelligent infrastructure transition, addressing the future development strategies, and then, based on this experience, providing highly qualified support for a wide transition toward a safer and more efficient road transportation solution.