A fictional story featuring Ariadna…

Ariadna is a young teenage student from Barcelona. She is pursuing a promising career as a future scientist at the city’s faculty of biology, and so her daily mobility routine involves taking public transport from home to university in the morning, and viceversa after classes. Fortunately, the range of mobility options at disposal for Ariadna is very broad, and so every day she decides on-the-go which is the most suitable, fastest combination of modes, whether it is bus, metro, tram, shared electric bike, etc. by checking what’s on store for her using her GALILEO-enabled smartphone, which timely shows her available intermodal combinations to reach her destination, while providing her a superior level of confidence as she can check very precisely how “her” bus is approaching her actual location, or even call one on-demand. Ariadna shares an apartment with other fellow students in the outskirts of the city, and her faculty is in downtown Barcelona; therefore, her commute always has different legs, which is far from being an issue for her, because she can seamlessly and reliably exchange modes, as information is extremely comprehensive thanks to the accuracy of location data (even though the faculty is located in an area where urban canyon effect used to be an issue, but not anymore since GALILEO has been broadly incorporated by public transport operators in the area, and embraced by end users like Ariadna).

ARIADNA‘s vision

ARIADNA’s vision is that Public Transport is not only “traditional” bus, metro, tram, interurban train, taxi, etc. but the centrepiece of urban mobility of the future in its broadest sense, including increasingly “shared mobility” and new disruptive paradigms such as MaaS. And this future comes with a number of challenges that need to be tackled. Today.

GALILEO is providing, already today, improved positioning accuracy and reliability in urban environments, together with new security features, such as authentication, enabling a range of new applications and services, particularly in the field of urban mobility and public transport, that will drive economic growth in Europe and beyond.

ARIADNA‘s objectives

Objective 1: RAISE AWARENESS…

… about the technological enhancements of EGNSS; identify the most relevant challenges for improved positioning and navigation, the expected benefits and market perspectives of EGNSS in public transport and urban mobility planning and operations.

Objective 2: BUILD THE CAPACITY…

… of urban mobility stakeholders, supporting their decision-making and ability to integrate EGNSS in the urban mobility market, with a focus on public transport as an entry point to the wider ITS – Intelligent Transportation Systems – sector.

Objective 3: FACILITATE EGNSS DEPLOYMENT…

… by creating concrete business opportunities and strategic excellence partnerships between EGNSS and urban mobility / public transport actors, in Europe and beyond.