Imagine you land at a busy airport and everything just works — the train knows your flight was delayed, extra buses are already on the way, and your app tells you the fastest route home. Right now, airports and local transport don't talk to each other, so delays cascade and passengers are left guessing. IMHOTEP built prediction tools and a shared decision-making system so airports and ground transport operators can see the same picture and react together. They tested it at two very different airports — a holiday hub in Mallorca and a business airport in London.
Airports and ground transport systems operate in silos. When a flight is delayed, buses and trains don't know about it. When a train breaks down, the airport can't warn arriving passengers. This disconnect causes missed connections, overcrowded terminals, wasted transport capacity, and frustrated travellers — problems that cost airports and transport operators real money every day.
A prototype simulation and decision support toolset with full software documentation (requirements, design, test docs, and user manual). The toolset includes data fusion methods for tracking passenger journeys door-to-door, predictive models for anticipating passenger flow changes, and collaborative decision-making tools connecting airports with ground transport operators.
If you are an airport operator dealing with unpredictable passenger surges that overwhelm your ground transport connections — this project developed a simulation and decision support toolset that predicts passenger flows within the day of operations. It was validated at 2 airports (Palma de Mallorca and London City) with 9 consortium partners across 4 countries.
If you are a local transport authority struggling to match bus, rail, or taxi supply to airport arrivals and departures — this project built data fusion methods that combine mobile device signals and digital sensor data into a single passenger trajectory view. This lets you anticipate demand spikes before they hit, rather than reacting after queues form.
If you are a mobility service provider looking to offer seamless door-to-door journey planning that includes the airport leg — this project created predictive models and real-time collaborative decision-making methods connecting airport and ground transport data. The 6 industry partners in the consortium built tools ready for integration into existing travel platforms.
The full R&D behind this system was backed by EUR 1,999,805 in EU funding across 9 partners. Implementation costs for your specific site would depend on existing infrastructure and data systems. Contact the coordinator for licensing or deployment pricing.
The system was deliberately validated at 2 airports with very different profiles — Palma de Mallorca (high-volume holiday traffic) and London City (business travellers). This dual-validation approach suggests the tools are designed to adapt to different airport sizes and passenger types.
The consortium of 9 partners across 4 countries (DE, ES, NL, UK) jointly developed the toolset. The coordinator, Nommon Solutions and Technologies (Spain), is an SME and likely the primary contact for licensing discussions. IP terms would be governed by the consortium agreement.
The project explicitly extends Airport Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) to include ground transport operators. Based on available project data, the toolset was designed as an extension layer, not a replacement, meaning it should complement existing A-CDM infrastructure.
The system fuses data from personal mobile devices and digital sensors to track door-to-door passenger trajectories. Based on the project objectives, it requires feeds from airport operational systems and ground transport data sources to build its shared situational awareness picture.
The project ran from June 2020 to November 2022 and produced a prototype simulation and decision support toolset with full documentation (requirements, design, test, and user manual). Based on available project data, moving to live deployment would require site-specific customization and integration work.
The project was funded under the SESAR programme (topic SESAR-ER4-13-2019), which is the EU's air traffic management modernization initiative. This alignment with SESAR means the tools were developed within the official European aviation R&D roadmap.
This is a strongly industry-driven consortium: 6 out of 9 partners (67%) are from industry, with 3 universities providing the research backbone. The coordinator, Nommon Solutions and Technologies, is a Spanish SME specializing in data analytics for transport — a good sign for commercialization since SMEs typically need to turn R&D into revenue. The 4-country spread (Germany, Spain, Netherlands, UK) covers major European aviation markets. The involvement of real airport operators in the case studies at Palma de Mallorca and London City adds credibility that the tools were built for actual operational environments, not just academic exercises.
Nommon Solutions and Technologies SL (Spain) — SME specializing in transport data analytics. As project coordinator and an SME, they are the most likely path to licensing or partnership discussions.
Want an introduction to the IMHOTEP team? SciTransfer can connect you with the right person at Nommon to discuss how the passenger flow prediction tools could work at your airport or transport network.
