The Travel Wise flagship project, a EUR 4.9 million synergy between SESAR and Europe's Rail Joint Undertakings with 37 partners, focuses on enhancing the integration of air and rail transport systems. In this interview, Micol Biscotto, Deep Blue, the project's coordinator, discusses the key objectives, challenges, and anticipated milestones, including demonstrations in Amsterdam, Athens, and Bologna, as well as the benefits for passengers seeking seamless multimodal journeys.
What are the main objectives of the Travel Wise project and why are they important?
Travel Wise's main goal is to support the shift from managing rail and air traffic in silos to intermodal traffic orchestration. This will be achieved by delivering a methodology, a roadmap, and related technologies that enable: i) information sharing between air and rail operators—while including maritime and road transport, ii) intermodal collaborative decision-making for both normal operations and disruptions, and iii) passenger experience optimisation. A key focus of the project is on solutions addressing transport disruptions by defining the interface and information exchange between the Air Transport Management System (ATM) and the rail traffic management system (TMS), particularly for airport-rail connections, planning, and operations management. Additionally, Travel Wise aims to develop an intermodal ecosystem for aviation and rail sectors, alongside a collaborative decision-making (CDM) solution to support integrated air-rail operations management. An important objective is to create a common air-rail data space while fostering the evolution and adoption of a Common European Mobility Data Space.
What are the main challenges the project will have to overcome?
The main challenges in achieving the previously mentioned objectives are related to rail- aviation interoperability and the lack of standardisation for the interfaces between the two, as well as the multimodal disruption management. Another significant challenge to be addressed by Travel Wise is the articulation of the data space enabling the air-rail relevant data exchange and its validation in the demos for the three scenarios proposed by Travel Wise project. The focus on addressing this challenge will be on defining the data governance, real time data sharing and access in accordance with GDPR, confidentiality and privacy requirements. In order to address these challenges, Travel Wise will define the interfaces between AMS and TMS, combine and orchestrate multisource data for passengers’ flows optimisation, define a streamlined way for collaboration between different transport service providers and leverage cutting-edge technologies to be applied in both sectors.
When can we expect to see the first results coming from the project and what will be the impact of these results?
The first steps of the project will be the identification of end users’ needs, the definition of the Concept of Operations and technical requirements, followed by demonstrations in three scenarios: the city pair (Amsterdam-Paris), the international hub (Athens) and the regional airport (Bologna). These deliverables will also address the impact of the Travel Wise solution on the existing ATM system and rail TMS. On the rail side, these requirements will feed into the next stages of Flagship Project 1 which investigate solutions for the European TMS of tomorrow and the EU-Rail System Pillar a harmonised system aproach, in alignment with standardisation and regulation processes with the European Commission and European Union Agency for Railways. The first project results are expected in the first half of 2025 and include user requirements,and benchmarking, followed by the preliminary demonstrations in 2026 and the final validation and CBA in 2027.
What will be the main outputs of the project and how will they contribute to shaping the future of multimodal transport?
The main output of the Travel Wise project will be the design and development of a single air – rail intermodal CDM and interconnected operations plan solution including real-time information exchange between stakeholders. This will provide additional information to support the management of both rail and aviation operations and react in a timely and effective manner in case of unforeseen events. More importantly, this solution will aim to improve the multi-modal passenger experience by supporting optimised door to door transport services and more effective disruption management across modes. These benefits will also support a passenger behavioural shift towards using trains instead of cars to reach airports, hence contributing to a reduction in CO2 emissions in line with the EU Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy.
What are the demonstrations expected to be carried out in the project and is there a calendar for those interested?
The project has selected three operational scenarios for the validation of the Travel Wise solution, including the airport-rail CDM process developed by the project: city pair, international hub, and regional airport. These scenarios were selected to ensure reproduceable results in other city pairs and have a good representation of the European diversity of air-rail connections. For example, the city pair demonstration will involve developing an integrated air-rail operations plan (i.e. extending the existing AOP to rail). This plan will test the effectiveness of proposed performance indicators, such as capacity and punctuality, by incorporating information from various players and stakeholders, including optimised timetables, real-time traffic updates, weather conditions, and infrastructure maintenance schedules, as well as passenger and luggage handling.
All demos will take place from mid-2025 to mid-2027 and the detailed results, along with a description of the Travel Wise solution and the CDM, as well as a roadmap and recommendations for their exploitation, replication and scalability. These recommendations will also focus on standardisation expectations which will feed into the relevant standardisation work of EU-Rail System Pillar and SESAR.
Why is the work done in the project important for the final users?
Achieving seamless intermodal connections and an efficient disruptions management have become priorities for the door-to-door, long-distance multimodal mobility services in Europe.
To address these, the European Commission has consistently supported the development of solutions, aimed at improving consumer access to multimodal travel information however, passenger support during disruptions remains limited, often leaving travellers to face long delays and find alternative options on their own. Another issue that has not been addressed yet is a more efficient dynamic rail traffic management supporting crowd management at the airports and train stations, i.e., longer trainsets could be planned for the transport of people needing transfers to and from airports. The Travel Wise solution seeks to fill these gaps by providing rail and aviation operators with a digital platform that facilitates efficient air – rail information exchange and operations, ultimately aiming to improve the overall multi-modal travel experience.