Dr. Georgia Ayfantopoulou is Deputy Director and Research Director at the Hellenic Institute of Transport (ΗΙΤ) of CERTH with professional and research experience for over 25 years in transport systems management and optimization. She is the Head of Research Department of HIT “Intelligent Infrastructure and Networks, Sustainable Mobility and Logistics” and being assigned the scientific responsibility and the coordination of many research, consultancy and industrial projects in these topics. She has written numerous scientific articles and reports.
Always focusing on new technology implementation, as enabler for transforming transport and mobility systems, her work emphases on: a) ITS, C-ITS for transport demand and traffic management, b) Data sharing and Big Data analytics for knowledge creation, modelling and decision support in Sustainable Mobility c) Tools and Services development for supporting intermodality as well as users and actors visibility in passengers and freight transport chains operation.
Heavily involved in supporting policy formulation, implementation and policy assessment for sustainable mobility (Urban Mobility Package assessment – DG MOVE, Sustainable Urban Mobility Indicators framework – DG MOVE, Greek Committee on SUMPs specifications, numerous SUMPs in Greece & Cyprus, author of thematic guides of SUMP 2.0, coordinator of CIVITAS projects) she has good knowledge of the cities challenges and of techniques for managing the change towards implementation of new mobility schemes.
She has migrated from industry to academia terrain in 2004 and she is committed to innovation creation and growth through collaboration. She is the Managing Director of the Thessaloniki Technology Park S.A., an innovation multiplier company with stakeholders all industrial associations and research organizations of Northern Greece promoting Mega Project for innovation in Greece, one of them being in mobility. Supporting ecosystems in 4helix collaboration towards city led innovation for mobility is an important part of her work the last ten years, in local ecosystems, H2020 and INTERREG projects. She is currently the coordinator of the Thessaloniki Smart Mobility Living Lab, a member of the European Association of Living Labs ENoLL and is leading the initiative for the establishment of the national Cluster and Competence Center on sustainable mobility and city logistics. She is a member of the EU Digital Transport & Logistics Forum, an expert group formulated by DG-MOVE for supporting interoperability of technologies platforms and services in transport and Logistics and with the mandate to deliver the proposal for the European Federated Network of platforms in transport logistics community.
