Progress of the KEYSTONE Project and Involvement of the Spanish Road Association
Article published in Carreteras Magazine, Spanish Road Association (AEC), page 78
The KEYSTONE project, in which the Spanish Road Association (AEC) is actively involved, continues to make significant progress.
Co-funded by the European Union (EU) under the Horizon Europe research line, KEYSTONE is set to launch in June 2023 with the objective of developing smart, digitised solutions to enhance the sustainability and efficiency of transport operations.
KEYSTONE, an acronym for Knowledgable Comprehensive and Fully Integrated Smart Solutions For Resilient, Sustainable and Optimised Transport Operation, brings together 15 entities from six countries under the auspices of the European Commission (EC).
Drawing on the conclusions of previous projects focused on standardisation, and considering the strengths and challenges of existing European transport and data exchange platforms, KEYSTONE aims to establish an integrated ecosystem for managing generated information. This will enable border control authorities to verify regulatory compliance quickly and easily, promoting an interoperable, inter-modal, and streamlined transport system.
At a technical level, KEYSTONE seeks to develop a universal EU-wide Application Programming Interface (API) standard. This standard will facilitate secure exchange, transfer, and dissemination of confidential documentation between logistics operators and control authorities, addressing critical needs at border crossings where time-sensitive operations and multilingual communication are common challenges.
The Spanish Road Association (AEC) plays a crucial role in the KEYSTONE project, collaborating with Transyt, the Transport Research Centre of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, representing Spain in this European programme. Additionally, ACS contributes to KEYSTONE through its involvement with the Smart Transportation Alliance, of which the Association is a founding member.
Focus Group
As part of KEYSTONE's initial activities, a focus group organised by the Technical University of Madrid and Coventry University will be held on 25 January at the School of Civil Engineering.
This session aims to gather perspectives on the digitisation of control activities in passenger and freight transport within Spain and internationally. Participants will discuss the current state of digitisation in logistics and passenger transport operations, as well as the primary challenges they encounter.
This focus group is one of three such events scheduled under KEYSTONE's initial activities, with the first held in Novara (Italy) in November, attended by Lourdes Diaz from the AEC Technical Department on behalf of AEC. The final event is planned for Coventry (UK) in the first quarter of 2024.