TRA VISIONS 2018 awarded prizes to young and senior researchers at TRA 2018

The main activity of TRA VISIONS 2018, a project funded by the European Commission (EC), is the development and implementation of two competitions. One is directed towards young researchers and the second towards senior researchers involved in EU projects. They take place every two years together with the TRA, the most important European conference on transport. TRA VISIONS 2018 awarded prizes to both its young and senior researcher winners at two separate ceremonies at the 2018 Transport Research Arena (TRA 2018), held from 16-19th April 2018 in Vienna, Austria.

Young Researcher winners

Young researchers from all over Europe submitted innovative concepts in order to enhance smart, sustainable and integrated transport and mobility of people and goods. Overall, 169 young researchers from 56 different European universities participated in the TRA VISIONS 2018 Young Researchers Competition and submitted 122 ideas for the transport modes road, rail, waterborne and cross-modal. The prizes were awarded for this competition during the TRA2018 Opening Ceremony on Monday 16th April (12-12:30pm).

The Young Researchers Competition awarded prizes sponsored by industry (ALICE, ERTRAC, Meyer Werft, SHIFT2RAIL and UITP). In the road sector, the winners were

• Mareike Hedderich from Munich University of the Federal Armed Forces (Park Spot Routing)
• Irene Martinez from Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya (Location of Variable Speed Limit application area to avoid capacity drop)
• Federico Perrotta from University of Nottingham (Evaluation of road pavements fuel efficiency using truck sensors data).

In the rail sector, the winners were

• Sander Van Aken (team leader)
• Patrick Looij and Nikola Besinovic from Delft University of Technology (Optimising Railway Timetables for Maintenance Possessions)
• Bernhard Reinholz from Hochschule München (Using braking energy in diesel locomotives)
• Robin Severs from Coventry University (Customer Experience and Exclusion of Smaller Towns in Intercity High Speed Rail Networks)

In the waterborne sector, the winners were

• Carlo Augusto Pasquinucci from Università di Genova (Free Form Deformation and Surrogate Surface: a Help in Greener Ship Design)
• Emmanouil-loizos Tsougranis from Newcastle University (Pressurised SOFC-GT Electric Propulsion Power Plant for LNG vessels)
• Syed Marzan Ul Hasan from University of Liege (A Method for Optimizing Cruising Speed Profile using Coasting Phenomena for an Eco-Friendly Ship)

Finally, in the cross-modality sector, the winner was

• Tomas Ambra from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Potential of supply chain collaboration in Brussels: up-scaling performance of demonstration case)
• Katrin Lättman from Karlstad University (Capturing the human dimension of accessibility in transport)
• Julian Bock from RWTH Aachen University (Intersection Dataset from UAV Video Data for Automated Driving).

Senior Researcher winners

The Senior Researcher winners received their prizes during the TRA2018 Gala Dinner on Tuesday 16th April. Senior researchers from all over Europe had submitted innovative concepts in order to enhance smart, sustainable and integrated transport and mobility of people and goods.  The competition received 121 entries from researchers based at 91 institutions, universities or companies. Entries were submitted for the four transport modes road, rail, waterborne and cross-modality.

• In the road sector, the winner was Ludwig Buergler from AVL LIST GmbH based in Graz for his work on diesel engine combustion.
• The rail winner was Ken Gavin from Ireland currently working at the Delft University of Technology and has a sustained track record of railway infrastructure research.
• Osman Turan from Strathclyde University in Scotland was the winner in the waterborne sector and he is recognised for his research on ship safety and human factors.
• The fourth winner was Verena Ehrler from the DLR Institute of Transport Research in Berlin and she is acknowledged for her continued and outstanding contribution to EU funded transport research related to cross modality.

TRAVISIONS 2018 is a project funded under the EC’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The project consortium members are the Institute for Automotive Engineering of RWTH Aachen University, Foundation WEGEMT – A European Association of Universities in Marine Technology and Related Sciences, BALance Technology Consulting GmbH, Politecnico di Torino, Newcastle University, Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories (FEHRL), Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) and University College London (UCL).

Further details on the competitions, the winners and their pitches, as well as a book including the abstracts of all the project ideas submitted for evaluation to both competitions may be found at www.travisions.eu. All the video materials can be found on the TRA VISIONS YouTube channel.

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