First INFRAMIX Workshop

Inframix organised its first interactive workshop “Preparing road infrastructure for the introduction of Automated Driving” at Automobile Barcelona on 14th May 2019.

Automobile Barcelona

Decorations at Fira Barcelona for Automobile Barcelona.

Automobile Barcelona is one of the major trade fairs in the world and by far the biggest in Fira Barcelona, Spain. This year was particularly significant as the first century of the fair was celebrated. Due to the renown of the exhibition and its targeted audience, Inframix organised a side event within the fair to promote its visibility and to reach for stakeholders in the field of automated mobility.

Panel of experts

After a short welcome by Mr Xavier Daura from Abertis Autopistas and a brief introduction to Inframix by the coordinator Mr Martin Dirnwöber from AustriaTech, the main session revolved around a fruitful exchange among experts.

Our panellists were not only accomplished mobility professionals, but also representatives of different European projects and working groups, namely ARCADE, CARTRE, ERTRAC, MAVEN and TransAid. The panel, moderated by the Inframix technical and innovation manager Mr Stamatis Manganiaris from ICCS, focused on two main themes:

  • Infrastructure Support Levels for Automated driving (ISAD)
  • New methods for managing traffic in the infrastructures.

Interactive session

An interactive session followed led by Ms Katia Pagle from ICCS, where the attendees were invited to register their reaction to Inframix scenarios (bottlenecks, dynamic lane assignment and roadworks) through some polls and questionnaires. These latter will be analysed and will contribute to Inframix next developments.

What now?

The workshop was meant to increase the visibility of the project among targeted stakeholders, such as road operators, car manufacturers, but also institutions and end users. Furthermore, it represented a valuable occasion to foster mutual knowledge and best practice exchange among different European projects and working groups focusing on automated mobility. Finally, the workshop was aimed at collecting constructive feedback from drivers regarding their user perception and experience.

A secondary effect of the event was that it fostered the conversation among experts and people interested in Inframix on social media. During the month preceding the workshop, ISAD, user acceptance and new traffic management have been discussed on our Linkedin group.

INFRAMIX workshop took place at the end of the second year of the project that turns now into its final stage of demonstrations. It will be followed by a second workshop in October 2019 in Graz, Austria, one of the demonstration sites of the projects. Again, our Linkedin group will be the platform to continue discussing the content of the event.  Stay tuned on our website, too.