Mobility Initiative
The Future Mobility Research Program is a long-term research program funded by the ETH Mobility Initiative partners (AMAG, SBB and Siemens Mobility) and ETH Zurich since 2018.
Research program
The aim of the program is to bring together competences from academic and industrial research in the field of future mobility. The overarching goal is to develop solutions that address major challenges like the decarbonization, digitalization, and development of the infrastructure in the coming decades. The program is structured around annual calls over a period of ten years that support research projects at the doctoral and post-doctoral level.
8th call for proposals

The call for projects for the 8th Mobility Initiative has just been opened now. Proposal details, deadlines and procedures can be found here.
Overview of funded projects

ESTRA: Efficient Safe Train Dynamics

FLEXHUB: Optimal and flexible operation of uncertain EV charging hubs

Lumos: A high-resolution, multi-scale urban land use transport interaction model for sustainable spatial and mobility planning in Switzerland

RailFreightMC: Intermodal rail freight mode choice variables for short-distance transportation in Switzerland

TariffV2G: Tariff design for efficient vehicle to grid integration

ALIGN: Aligning policies and business strategies for sustainable mobility with consumer and citizen attitudes, behavior, and policy preferences

ESYN: E-Mobility versus Synfuels in economically developing nations’ road transport

INTERCHARGE: Secure integration of the future e-mobility charging infrastructure with the electricity grid

INTRIM: Immersive NeRF-based teleoperation with robots for inspection and maintenance

LeRaBe: Learning Railways for Better schedules

ExplainAI: Designing explainable ML-based systems for collaborative work in the railways

InteractionsMobility: Systemic view on the strategic interactions of future mobility offers

MILE: Multimodal robotic last mile

OptXR: Optimization of maintenance processes with extended reality

Pythia: Forward-looking automatic detection of de-energized overhead lines

RESAIL: Reliable and economic integration of the Swiss federal railway to the energy strategy
4th call (funded projects in 2021)

EVAdopt: Incentives for Electric Vehicles Adoption

IARMO: Interactive Augmented Reality-guided Maintenance Operation

InsideOut: Autonomy-enabling Infrastructure for future mobility systems

MULTIMODALITY: Multimodality in the Swiss New Normal

SENTINEL: In-service diagnostics of the catenary/pantograph and wheelset axle systems through intelligent algorithms

SUNFUELS: Towards commercial solar thermochemical production of sustainable drop-in fuels
3rd call (funded projects in 2020)

LROD-ADAS: Long-range obstacle detection for early alert advanced driving assistance systems

RAIL: Robust machine learning for safety-critical systems

RailPower! Power and energy for the future railways

REASSESS: Early detection and assessment of railway substructure moisture problems

STABILITY: Maintaining train schedule stability and managing time table reserves
2nd call (funded projects in 2019)

EIM: Empirical use and Impact analysis of MaaS
1st call (funded projects in 2018)

FPFT: Future environmental performance of Swiss freight transport – Impacts on rail cargo competitiveness

INTERACT: Integrated intelligent railway wheel condition prediction

OMISM: On board monitoring for integrated systems understanding & management improvement in railways

PROMPT: Vision-based localization and mapping for high-precision positioning of trains with on-board sensing