An AI-powered platform helping European cities turn scattered data into smarter infrastructure decisions
Four European cities — Bilbao, Hamburg, Thessaloniki and Vienna/Linz — are taking part in a European Union-funded project aimed at transforming the way transport authorities make decisions about their infrastructure. The project is called MITHOS, and its objective is to develop decision-support tools for more efficient, safe and sustainable mobility.
The challenge MITHOS addresses is common to most European cities: transport infrastructure managers work with scattered data, disconnected tools and fragmented information. Planning an improvement to a bus network, assessing the impact of a new low-emission zone, or deciding where and when to carry out road maintenance currently requires considerable coordination effort — and even then, decisions are made with incomplete information.
To address this, the MITHOS consortium — comprising 14 organisations from six European countries — is developing a cloud-based digital platform that centralises data from multiple sources, processes it intelligently, and offers decision-makers optimised, easy-to-interpret alternatives.
The architecture is organised into three integrated layers. At its foundation, a federated data management module collects heterogeneous information from sensors, cameras, historical records and open European sources, standardising it through ontologies and metadata catalogues compatible with Mobility Data Spaces. Each city retains sovereignty over its own data, which is integrated into the system only when required, via standardised connectors.
Built on this foundation is the Bundle of Fundamental Tools (BFT): a set of simulation and calculation tools that MITHOS enhances and interconnects. Tools such as SUMO — for traffic simulation —, COPERT — for emissions calculation — and VEINS — for vehicular communications — are integrated into a common platform, enabling simultaneous analysis of the efficiency, safety, energy consumption and environmental impact of any infrastructure decision. The innovation lies not only in the improvement of each individual tool, but in their interoperability.
Finally, an Artificial Intelligence-based Decision Support System (DSS) combines the outputs of these tools to generate optimised alternatives, presented to managers through an interactive dashboard that allows them to explore scenarios, compare options and visualise the territorial impact of each decision.
The four pilots cover a wide range of challenges: from the reactivation of the Nervión waterway for last-mile logistics in Bilbao, to improving the safety of cyclists and pedestrians in Hamburg, reorganising Thessaloniki’s bus network following the opening of its metro, and managing motorway maintenance in Austria.
The project, funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe programme, will run until 2029. Its outputs will be made openly available, with the aim of enabling any European city to adopt and adapt the solution to its own needs.
Further information: Mithos Project – Mithosproject
Contact: [email protected]
