The “HIGH-TOOL” project is one of the winners of the German Mobility Prize 2017. In the award ceremony held at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, the prize was conferred on the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and its partners from five countries for their “HIGH-TOOL” project by Parliamentary State Secretary Dorothee Bär and Ute Weiland, Director of the “Germany – Land of Ideas” initiative. Coordinated by KIT, a planning tool to forecast the quantitative impacts of transport policy measures on economy, society, and environment was developed for the EU.
“Alongside strong national and international partners, KIT conducts research on the challenges the society is facing with respect to energy, mobility, and information,” said Professor Holger Hanselka, President of KIT. “The fact that the German Mobility Prize has been awarded to the HIGH-TOOL project underlines that we are on the right track when it comes to making excellent contributions.”
“Germany is the number one mobility country! With the German Mobility Award, we are promoting moving innovations made in Germany, because with the best ideas, we will become a trailblazer for Mobility 4.0,” said Alexander Dobrindt, the German Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, on the occasion of the award presentation ceremony to HIGH-TOOL and the other prize winners.
The model (strategic high-level transport model) developed within the HIGH-TOOL project of the EU allows computerized modeling of transport policy measures and their impacts. With this tool, the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE) of the European Commission is provided a quantitative instrument to assess the impact of transport policy measures on economy, society, and the environment for decades. HIGH-TOOL can be applied to strategically assess and preselect options for analysis using more detailed models.
The HIGH-TOOL model enables computerized modeling of transport policy measures and their impacts. (Picture: KIT/HIGH-TOOL)
„Being awarded the German Mobility Prize is, of course, a stimulus for the entire project team to continue applying and further developing this instrument,” the project coordinator, Dr. Eckhard Szimba, who heads the respective working group at the Chair for Network Economics of KIT's Institute for Economic Policy Research (ECON), says with delight. In addition, the award of the German Mobility Prize to an EU project highlights the synergies existing between European transport research and national transport research and policy.
“HIGH-TOOL” is a particularly user-friendly OpenSource software. Any strategy simulation is accompanied by an assessment report that lists major results in the form of Excel tables and diagrams.
Under the 7th Research Framework Program, the European Union funded the HIGH-TOOL project with about EUR 2.5 million. A total of eight partners from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Hungary were involved. KIT coordinated the project, additionally participated in all development areas, and was responsible for the passenger demand model.
More information is available at:
www.deutscher-mobilitätspreis.de/hightool
http://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2017_023_high-tool-supports-transport-planning-in-europe.php
About The German Mobility Prize
Created by the "Germany – Land of Ideas" initiative and the Federal Ministry for Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), the German Mobility Prize is intended to showcase digital innovation for intelligent mobility solutions – and generate new momentum for Germany as a digital location. This competition focuses on demonstrating the opportunities that arise from innovative digital solutions for tomorrow’s mobility.
The jury selected the 10 winners of the 2017 award from about 170 submissions. They all show how the digital transformation of mobility can be advanced to enable even more intelligent and safe ways for transporting people and goods in the future. HIGH-TOOL and the other honored projects thus are shining examples for Germany as a center of business and research excellence.
www.deutscher-mobilitaetspreis.de
More about the KIT Mobility Systems Center: http://www.mobilitaetssysteme.kit.edu
Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 10,000 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,800 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.