The SYNCHROMODE partners met in Munich from 30 to 31 October, hosted by Yunex Traffic, for the last General Assembly (GA) meeting. This marked an important milestone in the project’s progress! The two-day meeting provided an opportunity to review ongoing developments, discuss achievements, and plan the next phases as the SYNCHROMODE project is ending soon!
The meeting opened with an update on project management, presented by CERTH, the project coordinator. The overview set the stage for the sessions that followed, focusing on current progress, upcoming deliverables, and key milestones.
Each case study team presented the latest updates on tasks, deliverables, and their connection to the overall SYNCHROMODE framework.
South Holland notably detailed how they dealt with the high season in Keukenhof: monitoring in real-time the traffic conditions, providing notification about congestion, delays and route guidance, and preparing the daily reports which are of high importance for the impact assessment evaluation.
A major highlight of the GA was the demonstration of the SYNCHROMODE Toolbox, showcasing the latest updates and interface improvements since the previous assembly. Partners reviewed the remaining pages and functionalities, addressed technical issues, and discussed the integration and testing of the SYNCHROMODE solution within each case study.
Deployment and testing execution plans were presented, alongside a structured overview of the testing process, assessment methodology, and time plan for finalization.
The consortium also reviewed recent and upcoming dissemination and communication activities, with a focus on strengthening visibility and stakeholder engagement. Planning is underway for the next public webinar and the final project event, which will showcase key results and lessons learned from SYNCHROMODE’s implementation.
The second day began with a session on Exploitation Strategies, led by PNO, outlining approaches to maximize the project’s impact and ensure long-term sustainability of the developed solutions. CERTH followed with a presentation on lessons learnt and policy recommendations, providing valuable insights into how SYNCHROMODE outcomes can inform future transport policies.
The meeting continued with an update on modelling, simulation, and prediction of multimodal solutions, underlining the technical advancements achieved and the collaborative efforts driving the project forward. We notably dived into transport network optimization, user needs, systems requirements definition and governance models.
The Munich GA demonstrated the strong collaboration among partners and the tangible progress across all work packages. With final integration and testing phases approaching, SYNCHROMODE continues to advance toward its goal of delivering innovative tools for real-time, data-driven multimodal transport management across Europe.
Find the latest news about the project below
https://synchromode.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SYNCHROMODE-newsletter-no4.pdf
After a first webinar organized on the introduction to network and traffic management, SYNCHROMODE webinars are continuing!
Save the date for our next webinar, focusing ‘Traffic supply and demand modelling, forecasting and optimization tools’: roadworks use case on 17 November 2025, from 11 to 12h30!
Hear from the experts at NOMMON, UCL and the University of DEUSTO who have been leading the developments on the digital world of SYMCHROMODE.
The SYNCHROMODE tools in full force for the Thessaloniki, Madrid and South of Holland case studies!
The agenda is the following:
Welcome by POLIS
Intro of the project and the road works use case – Project coordinator (Dimitris Tzanis, CERTH) (5min)
Introduction to the roadworks problems, data quality & imputations – Project coordinator (Dimitris Tzanis, CERTH)
Matrix similarity measures (Oliva Garcia Cantu, NOMMON)
Roadwork effects (Oliva Garcia Cantu, NOMMON)
Traffic metamodeling for system interventions (Manos Chaniotakis, UCL)
Roadwork planning Optimization (Antonio Masegosa, University of Deusto)
Wrap up and Q&A intro (POLIS network)
Q&A (30 minutes)
Closing (POLIS)
Register here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3pUw2YWGSaiao-Tj-lqj2Q
The European Union-funded project SYNCHROMODE is helping improve multimodal traffic management across the Netherlands during the 2025 spring and summer season!
Following extensive preparation with all stakeholders in the South Holland and North Holland area, the project deployed the SYNCHROMODE Toolbox, a suite of tools designed to manage traffic more effectively across the network, starting with the spring tulip season at Keukenhof, and continuing during the summer in the popular coastal towns of Noordwijk and Hoek van Holland (near Rotterdam).
Keukenhof, a popular tourist destination, receives approximately 1.4 million visitors during its eight-week tulip season. On peak days, particularly during favourable weather conditions and public holidays such as Easter, daily visitor numbers can reach up to 40,000!
In order to prevent excessive travel times or gridlock, traffic management can help mitigate these risks. SYNCHROMODE provided support for Keukenhof and partners (Zuid-Holland Bereikbaar, Provincie Zuid-Holland, Provincie Noord-Holland, TMC ‘Regiodesk’, Rijkswaterstaat and municipalities HLT-samen and Haarlemmermeer) through a cooperative dashboard and traffic management support tool. This tool enables stakeholders to monitor real-time and predicted transport and traffic conditions, thereby assisting stakeholders in operational decision-making. The projects’ support included:
A key improvement was the introduction of a shared traffic dashboard, accessible to all stakeholders and projected daily on a large screen at Keukenhof. This facilitated a unified view of the traffic network, enhancing situational awareness and coordination.
In addition, the daily reports provided valuable insights into traffic conditions and anomalies, offering a foundation for future development into strategic management reporting.
During the tulip season, approximately 18.000 on-trip and 13.000 post-trip notifications were disseminated via the Flitsmeister app. Despite challenges such as limited training data, resulting from the short seasonal duration, changes in ticketing procedures, and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the short-term prediction was recalibrated multiple times and ultimately delivered promising results. An updated version of the model is currently being considered for deployment in the 2026 season.
Lessons learned from the 2025 season highlight the need for more direct and timely communication regarding scenario activation from the Traffic Management Centre (TMC). Additionally, the development of a handheld version of the Common Operational Picture is considered a valuable enhancement to support field operations and improve situational awareness.
Following the spring season, the solutions were adapted for use in the coastal municipalities of Noordwijk and Hoek van Holland during the summer. Efforts were primarily focused on informing drivers about parking routes and the availability of the Beach Shuttle in Noordwijk (P+R near the N206) using the Flitsmeister application. In Noordwijk, the objective was to train a midterm prediction model (up to 5 days in advance) based on parking data from ten monitored locations, weather forecast, day-of-week patterns, public holidays, and local events. The aim was to forecast high-traffic days and enable preemptive measures, such as scheduling additional public transport services and extending Beach Shuttle operations. However, the real-time parking data stream was unavailable during the summer season. As an alternative, travel times on three main access routes to the beach were used to train the model.
Flowcontrol was employed to provide on-trip parking guidance and Beach Shuttle information to Flitsmeister users in Noordwijk aan Zee. In total, approximately 45.000 parking guidance messages and 49.000 Beach Shuttle notifications were delivered. In Hoek van Holland, SYNCHROMODE is supporting the setup of parking guidance during the activation of beach scenarios using the MobiMaestro – VM-iVRA notification chain.
In conclusion, the SYNCHROMODE project has shown the value of collaborative, data-driven approaches to multimodal traffic management. The tools and insights developed during the spring and summer of 2025 provide a solid foundation for further refinement and wider application in future operations. With continued stakeholder engagement and technical improvements, SYNCHROMODE is well-positioned to support increasingly complex mobility challenges in the coming years!
The SYNCHROMODE project took the stage last week at the International Symposium on “Navigating the Future of Traffic Management”, held in Athens from 29 June to 3 July. The event gathered leading voices from research, industry, and policy to pave the way for the future of multimodal traffic management.
On Monday, June 30, Workshop 8 on “International Advancements in Multimodal Traffic Management” featured an exchange of insights on emerging tools and strategies. The session was moderated by Evangelos Mitsakis, Research Director at CERTH (Centre for Research and Technology Hellas).
A highlight of the workshop was the presentation and live demonstration of the SYNCHROMODE Toolbox by Dimitris Tzanis (CERTH-HIT), showcasing its capabilities in enabling efficient, data-driven traffic solutions. The demonstration illustrated how the toolbox can be leveraged to support more sustainable and responsive traffic systems. In addition, the workshop featured a presentation of the “Multimodal Traffic Management: Roadmap for 2030 and Beyond”, developed by the Multimodal Traffic Management Cluster. The presentation outlined the key outcomes of the initiative and highlighted the strategic focus areas shaping the future of multimodal traffic management in Europe.
The workshop also featured interesting presentations from international experts, including:
The event highlighted growing international momentum around intelligent multimodal traffic management systems and underlined the critical role of research and innovation in addressing urban mobility challenges.
In addition, on Tuesday, July 1, SESSION 1E “New ways and types of Data”, featured two core components of the SYNCHROMODE Toolbox: the Data Quality Framework and the Traffic Flow Prediction Model.
Viktoria Petkani (CERTH-HIT) presented the Data Quality Framework, emphasizing how data quality forms the backbone of modern traffic management systems. As effective traffic management increasingly relies on a growing number of real-time data sources (e.g., sensors, connected vehicles, and mobile devices) the need for robust data quality assessment becomes critical. Her presentation showcased a real-world application of the methodology, highlighting its results and its impact on traffic conditions. The demonstration underlined the importance of having a system capable of effectively assessing and correcting traffic data, upon which critical decisions are based.
Dimitris Tzanis (CERTH-HIT) presented the multi-phase deep learning framework developed for traffic flow prediction. He discussed the model’s characteristics and demonstrated its practical application, including results from its deployment during this year’s Keukenhof exhibition.
To wrap up its presence at the symposium, SYNCHROMODE took center stage at the exhibition on Tuesday, 1 July, and Wednesday, 2 July, where it showcased its cutting-edge Toolbox developed for the city of Thessaloniki, along with an extended version tailored for the city of Athens. Visitors had the chance to explore the tools, algorithms, and final integrated solutions designed to tackle the complexities of multimodal traffic management. The exhibition clearly demonstrated how SYNCHROMODE’s innovations can scale and adapt to cities and regions across Europe and beyond.
As traffic networks become more complex and intermodal, SYNCHROMODE and its partners are helping redefine how cities move: smarter, safer, and more sustainably.
SYNCHROMODE was featured at the 16th ITS European Congress, held from 19 to 21 May 2025 in Seville, Spain. The event brought together experts, innovators, and stakeholders in the field of Intelligent Transport Systems to explore the latest advances in mobility and traffic management.
SYNCHROMODE participated in the strategic session SIS56: “Next Generation Multimodal Traffic Management – Results and Roadmap”, held on Wednesday, 21 May. The session highlighted innovative solutions from three major EU-funded projects: ACUMEN, DELPHI_EU, and SYNCHROMODE, focusing on how research outcomes are being translated into real-world tools for managing multimodal passenger and freight traffic.
A key outcome of the session was the presentation of the “Multimodal Traffic Management: Roadmap for 2030 and Beyond”, a forward-looking document developed by the Multimodal Traffic Management Cluster (MTMC), in which SYNCHROMODE is an active member. The roadmap outlines strategic directions for sustainable, data-driven transport systems across Europe.
In addition to the main session, the SYNCHROMODE Toolbox was presented during Technical Paper Session TP28, titled “Getting Value from Mobility Data”. The Toolbox offers practical applications for leveraging mobility data to optimize multimodal transport planning and operations.
SYNCHROMODE extends its sincere thanks to the speakers who contributed to the sessions:
The project team also expresses its gratitude to #ITSCongresses and the organizer Dimitris Tzanis, from Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, as well as the moderator Sergio Escriba from CINEA for their support in organizing and facilitating this high-impact event.
The SYNCHROMODE partners gathered in Barcelona for a 2-day meeting of productive discussions about the project’s progress and next steps.
This General Assembly was held in Castelldefels, close to Barcelona, on 28 & 29 May 2025.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS:
The General Assembly began with valuable insights on project management from Dimitris Tzanis (CERTH), the project coordinator. His presentation covered a range of topics including administrative matters, coordination, innovation management, data management, and ethics.
The day then focused on the integration and testing of the SYNCHROMODE solutions within the case studies. We received updates from the teams in Madrid, Thessaloniki, and South Holland, who shared the status of their tasks and deliverables, current challenges, and next steps.
South Holland provided an interesting overview of their plans to manage traffic during sunny days near Keukenhof. Madrid discussed some of the difficulties they are experiencing with data provision and the alternative solutions they are exploring. Finally, Thessaloniki conducted a live demonstration of the toolbox, sharing their screens to show how traffic can be monitored across different trajectories and specific time slots.
In the afternoon, project partners YUNEX, VMZ, and CERTH provided more details on the lessons learned and progress made regarding the implementation and testing of SYNCHROMODE solutions. Various components of the system were tested within different modules, taking into account their impacts on key factors such as user acceptance, safety, and KPIs.
CERTH elaborated on the impact assessment approach, explaining how data collected during the execution phase will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the toolbox. The SYNCHROMODE toolbox is expected to contribute to important goals such as improving road safety, reducing traffic congestion and pollutant emissions, shortening journey times, and encouraging policymaker engagement. Each of these anticipated impacts will be assessed across social, economic, and environmental KPIs.
An engaging discussion emerged around how to define and measure these impacts in each case study. For example, partners explored ways to calculate public transport occupancy rates and interpret their relevance within the broader evaluation framework. Clearly, this represents an additional challenge for the SYNCHROMODE team!
Day 1 concluded with a pleasant seaside dinner, offering partners the opportunity to network and exchange ideas in a more informal setting.
On the second day, we began with a presentation by PNO on business modelling and exploitation strategy. The discussion focused on the commercial potential of SYNCHROMODE services and how to bridge the gap between research outcomes and real market conditions. A first workshop on the exploitation strategy is already planned for September 2025!
This was followed by a presentation from RUPPRECHT on Work Package 2 (WP2), which focused on user needs, system requirements, governance structures, cooperation models, and decision-making frameworks. Building on the results from the case studies and the impact assessment, a further analysis of governance and cooperation models will be conducted.
NOMMON then presented the current status of data gathering, fusion, and analysis. This was followed by UCL’s session on modelling, simulation, and the prediction of multimodal transport solutions.
After lunch, UCL continued with a presentation on predicting disruptions and traffic conditions. Accurate traffic state prediction is crucial for effective traffic flow management, especially during peak hours or in the event of accidents. For this purpose, a dedicated predictive model has been developed.
Finally, DEUSTO presented the transport network optimization tasks, along with the design of optimization methods across the different modules. A first prototype has already been developed for most categories of optimization problems. Testing scenarios for preliminary results will be implemented in three carefully selected villages in the southwest region of Madrid. DEUSTO showcased comparisons between baseline scenarios and optimized schedules, clearly highlighting the improvements.
The second day concluded with a Steering Committee meeting involving CERTH, DEUSTO, YUNEX, PZH, and UCL.
A special thank you to AIMSUN for hosting and organizing this successful gathering! We are already looking forward to the next meeting and to continuing our collective efforts toward smarter, more integrated traffic management solutions.
Steven Boerma, from MAPtm, partner of the SYNCHROMODE project, introduced TrafficDash to Henk de Mooij, park manager of Keukenhof, Netherlands.
TrafficDash is a Dashboard, developed by MAPtm, to be used as part of the SYNCHROMODE toolbox that enables Keukenhof to further improve Multimodal Traffic Management.
The dashboard provides a detailed overview of the real-time traffic situation including weather, rainfall and incidents in the northern region of Zuid-Holland. In the near future, the dashboard will also show public transport positions and delays, roadworks, weather predictions and bridge openings.
Legend of the dashboard
Top bar
On the map
Right window
An operator can change the status of the incident:
In the upcoming period, the SYNCHROMODE toolbox will be expanded with prediction modules to anticipate upcoming traffic situations even better.
The SYNCHROMODE partners gathered for their 4th GA in Bilbao, from 20th to 22nd of November 2024 hosted by Deusto University.
The first morning was dedicated to an overview of the project management led by CERTH to prepare the mid-term review as the project reached month 18 at the end of October 2024. The three pilot sites from the Province of South Holland, Madrid and Thessaloniki could then explain the progress of their local experimentations:
The following presentations were dedicated to the technical developments of the project:
The second day began with the presentation of the dissemination and communication of the project’s results. POLIS Network is in charge of the communication of the project on the various social media channels and at the relevant events. SYNCHROMODE has been featured in all the major sector events during the year as the ITS World Congress in Dubai from 16th to 20th of September, the CIVITAS Forum in Parma from 1st to 3rd of October and the POLIS Conference on 27th & 28th of November. SYNCHROMODE is also playing an active role within the Multimodal Traffic Management Cluster, coordinating the writing and publication of its Roadmap for 2030. PNO then presented their workplan to develop the exploitation strategy and the business modelling. They shared their definition of the Key Exploitable Results (KER) of the project. The University of Deusto then explained the status of their work package that aims at developing a framework for transport network management which allows to optimise mobility flows of passengers and freights. The day ended with the presentation of VMZ and Yunex, in charge of integrating the SYNCHROMODE modules and the case studies in one toolbox.
The last day was dedicated to the last discussion about the integration of all modules and to the preparation of the mid-term review meeting.
We would like to thank the University of Deusto for their warm welcome in Bilbao!
On 3rd of October, the CINEA Program Coordination Manager, Thiago Tavares introduced the “Multimodal Traffic Management: Roadmap for 2030 and beyond” at the CIVITAS Forum 2024, at Parma, Italy.
He presented the key components for resilient multimodal transportation systems: technologies, data and policies. He then led the discussions on how to make the best use of AI, digital twins and other promising technologies such as CCAM in the Multimodal Traffic Management domain, including a very interesting interactive exchange between the panelists and the audience. The MTMC Roadmap is the collaborative result of 7 ongoing Horizon Europe projects on traffic management. These projects are TANGENT, Orchestra, DIT4TRAM, Frontier, SYNCHROMODE, ACUMEN, and DELPHI.
(more…)