TRR 408:  AgiMo: Data-driven agile planning for responsible mobility

• Subject Area: Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Construction Engineering and Architecture
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 531327426

The transportation sector has been an unquestioned driving force of societal progress for decades. However, it is now facing unprecedented challenges, e.g., rapid decarbonization, broader demands for equity, and livable cities. Efficiency gains from technological innovation tend to be offset by unintended consequences such as increasing traffic volumes. Integrated planning approaches are key to address these challenges but current research methods in planning are often fragmented, and too focused on motorized transportation and efficiency gains. The opportunities from new data sources are not fully considered, and models are often too technical in their implementation to be suitable for evidence-based participatory planning methods. Phase I of the proposed CRC will address the identified research gaps with the following four main research goals: • develop a new set of consistent scientific mobility planning methods, including behavioral data and models, and methods for planning and managing transportation systems and mobility services, for all modes from walking to motorized vehicles, while taking advantage of new data sources; • integrate a new set of modular metrics for responsible mobility, considering what we call the ``4F principles'' with the four dimensions Function, Form, Fairness, Forever; • embed the new planning methods into the open data AgiMo Digital Twin that provides up-to-date network-wide assimilated mobility data and the models for generating this data with fast turnaround; • develop participatory planning methods based on the technical outcomes from the AgiMo Digital Twin to create future scenarios for responsible mobility that are technically well-grounded and at the same time represent stakeholder preferences. For meeting these ambitions, this CRC will be organized into three Research Areas (RAs). RA A and RA B will focus on advancing individual mobility planning methods. RA A ``Humans in context'' will generate behavioral data and models to study mobility preferences and behavior. RA B ``Systems and services'' will develop new approaches to the simulation, planning and management of transportation systems and mobility services. RA C ``Metrics, scenarios and integration'' will provide new metrics for system appraisal in terms of responsible mobility. Based on outcomes from RA A and RA B, and together with INF, RA C will also develop the AgiMo Digital Twin, which will provide up-to-date network-wide assimilated mobility data. This data will be directly applied in RA C to develop coherent scenarios for responsible mobility in iterative feedback loops between innovative participatory planning formats and technical modeling. The long-term perspective for this CRC is to further develop the AgiMo Digital Twin in its components and their integration, its functionalities and its interaction with an active community into a virtual laboratory that enables research and supports practical planning tasks.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios

Current projects

• A01 - Innovative survey designs for better understanding human (travel) behavior (Project Head Gerike, Regine )
• A02 - New methods for investigating stated behavior and preferences for extreme carbon reduction strategies (Project Heads Abouelela, Mohamed ;  Hottenrott, Hanna )
• A03 - New data on street design and street user activities for innovative safety assessment methods (Project Heads Eltner, Anette ;  Gerike, Regine )
• A04 - Data analytics for characterizing and modeling travel and traffic patterns (Project Heads Kerschke, Pascal ;  Wittwer, Rico )
• A06 - Advancing agent-based transportation models to better represent active mobility (Project Head Ziemke, Dominik )
• A07 - Reinforcement learning for mode choice decisions (Project Head Okhrin, Ostap )
• B01 - Human-centered adaptive street design for livable cities (Project Head Carlow, Vanessa Miriam )
• B02 - Analysis of bicycle flow characteristics based on different vehicle types and riders (Project Head Kessler, Lisa )
• B03 - Planning new public transportation services based on autonomous vehicles (Project Head Dandl, Florian )
• B04 - Multiobjective optimization of traffic signals for multimodal traffic (Project Head Wang, Meng )
• B05 - Design, operation and incentivation of two-echelon city logistics systems (Project Head Schiffer, Maximilian )
• B06 - MobilityCoins for the management of multi-modal urban transportation and delivery systems (Project Heads Bogenberger, Klaus ;  Hottenrott, Hanna )
• B07 - New methods for multi-modal microscopic simulation of street users’ behavior in shared space contexts (Project Heads Bogenberger, Klaus ;  Treiber, Martin )
• C01 - New metrics for transportation system appraisal (Project Head Waller, Ph.D., Travis )
• C02 - Scenarios for responsible mobility and livable cities (Project Head Carlow, Vanessa Miriam )
• C03 - Integration of data and models towards the AgiMo Digital Twin (Project Head Nagel, Kai )
• C04 - Simulation-based development of coherent scenarios for decarbonized transportation systems and responsible mobility (Project Head Nagel, Kai )
• C05 - Novel assessment methods based on the multimodal macroscopic fundamental diagram (Project Head Loder, Allister )
• C06 - Exploring the potential of LLM-supported mobility planning (Project Head Razniewski, Simon )
• C07 - Data-flexible calibration of large-scale transportation simulation models (Project Head Antoniou, Constantinos )
• INF - INF (Project Head Müller-Pfefferkorn, Ralph )
• RTG - RTG:Integrated research training group (Project Heads Loder, Allister ;  Waller, Ph.D., Travis )
• Z - Z: Central tasks of the Collaborative Research Center (Project Head Gerike, Regine )

• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Dresden
• Co-Applicant Institution: Technische Universität München (TUM)
• Participating University: Technische Universität Berlin; Technische Universität Braunschweig
• Participating Institution: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR); Institut für Verkehrsforschung
• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr.-Ing. Regine Gerike