Can you tell us a bit about your company and its core mission?
Founded in 1968, ISIG – Institute of International Sociology Gorizia, is a private non-profit research organisation. It specialises in a range of activities and services including research, project design, consultancy, and training, aimed at fostering local development, international collaboration, and promoting peaceful coexistence. The institute focuses on several key research and project domains: Borders and Cross-border Cooperation; Minorities and Social Inclusion; Spatial Planning and Risk Management; Social Policies and Services; Participatory Processes and Local Development; Security, Privacy, and Ethics.
What specific role does your company play in the TRACE project?
Within the TRACE project, ISIG focuses on ethical and societal aspects. Through different tasks, ISIG ensures ethical research, fostering compliance through the development of TRACE Ethics Guidelines and tools, the establishment and management of an Ethics Board, and the organisation of ethics workshops. In addressing Ethics and Societal Requirements, ISIG supports the development of a trustworthy AI system, and designs a participatory model to ensure an inclusive involvement of relevant stakeholder, also analysing mobility and logistics needs through several activities on the field.
Additionally, ISIG leads the creation of guidelines and recommendations for stakeholders and authorities for managing the TRACE platform and its technicalities in the ICT, AVs, and logistics domains.
ISIG also supports the development of TRACE demonstrators, by ensuring that the project’s practical applications are ethically sound, socially inclusive, and aligned with users’ needs.
How do you see the TRACE project impacting the industry and the community?
TRACE is poised to significantly impact both the logistics industry and the broader community by addressing contemporary challenges and advancing the adoption of intelligent services. The project aims at identifying barriers to the new logistics era, exploring new business opportunities, and outlining the requirements for updated legislation and regulatory frameworks.
TRACE aims to enhance performance and optimise the use of shared resources through a universal platform that supports planning, scheduling, optimisation, and events management. The integration of synchromodal operations and heterogeneous logistics services aims to reduce transfers, lower carbon footprints, and ensure resilient, uninterrupted deliveries, even during disruptive events.
Ultimately, TRACE pursues to positively impact the industry and community by reducing energy demand and emissions, while lowering operational costs for logistics stakeholders, thus promoting a climate-friendly infrastructure.
If you had to describe the TRACE project in a few words, what would they be?
URSO: Useful, Relevant, Sustainable, Owned.
TRACE actively engages end-users and stakeholders throughout all project phases, ensuring solutions are tailored to real needs and challenges, thus maximizing their usefulness and relevance. Sustainability is a core objective, with TRACE focusing on reducing carbon footprints and promoting environmentally friendly logistics practices through intelligent synchromodal operations and optimised resource use. Ownership is fostered by involving stakeholders in the co-design, validation, and evaluation processes, ensuring their input shapes the solutions and their commitment to implementation is secured.
This inclusive approach ensures that TRACE solutions are not only innovative but also practically applicable, widely accepted, and enduring in their impact.
