The 16th European ITS Congress concluded last week in Seville after three days of intense discussions around sustainable urban mobility, automated vehicles, and artificial intelligence applications in transportation. The event drew approximately 3,000 mobility experts from across Europe and beyond.
Warm applause greeted Professor Eric Sampson, returning to his role as Chief Rapporteur for the event, as he took to the stage in the closing ceremony to deliver his summary of conference proceedings.
He noted significant progress in connected and automated mobility. “CCAM has stopped being science fiction. It’s now a user service fact,” he said. “Shuttles and delivery robots are the most popular automated vehicle use cases with practical applications now being deployed across Europe”
The congress demonstrated substantial advancement in data integration and digital transformation. “Cities need an open, European, wide data exchange architecture in order to support the sharing of information,” said Sampson, emphasizing the importance of coordinated technological infrastructure.
Event awards
The ceremony also saw prizes being awarded for the best conference contributions. Joost Vantomme, CEO of ERTICO, announced the winners:
The Best Technical Paper Award went to Advancing the Sustainable Urban Air Mobility Indicators Framework: Proposing New Non-Core Indicators by Anna Palaiologk, Kyriaki Daskaloudi, Eleftheria Georganti, Future Needs, Cyprus.
Vantomme praised the work, saying, “The paper described how a city can prepare for managing potentially disruptive mobility services that use what for most cities will be new technologies and regulatory frameworks.”
The Best Research Paper was named as Dynamic Bicycle Travel Demand Estimation: An Application to the Paris Metropolis, bye Guoxi Feng, Alexandre Lanvin and Alexandre Chasse, which looked at a novel methodology for analysing bicycle travel demand using a number of different sensors, creating an approach transferable to other locations.
The Best Session, as voted for by attendees, was presented to Dr. Vassilis Agouridas of ERTICO for Innovation and Implementation Lessons from Drone Deployments, reflecting growing interest in transportation solutions that go, as Vantomme put it, “a bit higher than the roads.”
The final summary
Chairman of ERTICO Dr. Angelos Amditis began his closing remarks began in poetical style: “They say that every end is a new beginning, and here, under the golden Andalusian sun, as the 16th European its Congress draws to a close, it is not just an ending remark, but the quiet spark of what’s next. And like the final step of a flamingo dancer full of power, full of grace, we pause, not to stop, but to pilot to turn toward the future.”
Amditis went on to emphasize the importance of collaboration in advancing mobility solutions. “Collaboration is our greatest multiplier. It transforms uncertainty into opportunity,” he said. “By 2030 our shared destination is clear, clean, connected, inclusive, resilient mobility ecosystem, one that embraces remote towns as much as mega cities, that serves the elderly and the young, the current user and the next generation, that leaves no one behind.”
The congress concluded with reminders of upcoming events: Istanbul will host the 2026 European ITS Congress, the next ITS World Congress will take place in Atlanta, USA in August 2025, followed by Daegu, South Korea in October 2026, and the event will return to Europe for Birmingham, UK hosting in 2027.
