Skip to main content

PTV Group helps unleash EU’s project Upper

Making public transport more attractive will help advance zero-emissions mobility
By Andrew Stone August 9, 2023 Read time: 2 mins
Lisbon is one of the city's where Upper seeks to move people onto public transport (© ITS International | Adam Hill)

Horizon Europe’s project Upper, which seeks to make public transport a central part of sustainable mobility, has a new partner in the PTV Group.

Upper (Unleashing the Potential of Public transport in EuRope), which launched in January 2023, consists of 80 measures in 10 cities and regions designed to inspire people to switch to public transport across Europe. The overall goal is to increase public transport usage to more than 30%. 

PTV’s transport planning technology has been incorporated into U-Sim, part of the Upper toolkit for implementing these measures. This solution is based on both PTV’s desktop and real-time traffic management software.

PTV transport planning technology is incorporated with U-Sim. U-Sim.plan is based on the traffic planning solution PTV Visum, a software system for traffic planning, transport demand modeling, and network data management that is already in use in eight of the project cities. 

Designed for multimodal analyses, the tool integrates relevant modes of transport, such as trains, trams, buses, pedestrians, cyclists, cars, and trucks into a uniform network model. This provides the standard to model and simulate transport networks and transport demand, which helps planners develop long-term transport strategies and solutions.

PTV Optima, already used by some of the partner cities, is incorporated into U-Sim.live, a suite of tools allowing mobility control centre operators to orchestrate city mobility in real time. 

Its network model starts from a standard digital twin and keeps it constantly updated with live data from its connectors to live data feeds, from different mobility data sources. This will help public transport operators and agencies make better operational decisions as they manage private and public mobility.

Project participants are working with 10 cities and regions: Valencia, Rome, Versailles Grand Parc - Île de France, Oslo, Mannheim, Lisbon, Leuven, Budapest, Thessaloniki and Hanover. 

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • How the metaverse will transform the future of mobility
    March 15, 2023
    Digital development has never been as rapid and disruptive as it is today. The metaverse and technologies such as AR and MR will transform our lives and businesses - including transport planning and shaping the mobility ecosystem, says Christian Haas of UMovity
  • Five cities in US, Europe and South America to model cycle safety
    March 20, 2023
    PTV will use Model2Go to generate cycling network data in one of the pilot programmes
  • PTV releases upgrades for traffic and pedestrian modelling software
    December 13, 2016
    The new releases of PTV’s Visum 16, Vissim 9 and Viswalk 9 software solution for macroscopic traffic modelling and microscopic traffic and pedestrian simulation come with several new features and functions.
  • Modelling MaaS and making it happen
    June 15, 2017
    Colin Sowman looks at some of the emerging technology being introduced to evaluate and operate Mobility as a Service. The fast-growing interest in Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) has prompted the creation of a host of software systems for those wanting to become a MaaS provider or participate in MaaS offerings. Most recently, at ITS International’s MaaS Market conference, Portuguese company Brisa Innovation announced a name change to A-to-Be to reflect its increasing involvement in the MaaS sector with the lau