After the Mobile Tartu Conference, our team continued straight into the next event from June 11–13, when the EIT Urban Mobility Doctoral Training Network Annual Forum took place in Tartu.
We were very happy to welcome Doctoral Training Network PhD researchers, their supervisors, alumni, network coordinators at the Technical University of Munich, EIT Urban Mobility representatives, and researchers working in the field of urban mobility. The diverse programme covered topics such as the 15-minute city, cross-border mobility, urban data governance, and autonomous vehicles. These themes were explored through keynote lectures from academia (Tiit Tammaru, Olle Järv, Matthew Zook) as well as public (Kertu Vuks) and private sector experts (Pille Metspalu, Margus Tiru), alongside technical site visits in Tartu and Tallinn, an alumna talk (Christelle Al Haddad), and a poster session. The City of Tartu was explored through a mobility experiment, where participants used different travel modes to discover various parts of the city, followed by a reflection round with the city representatives.
One of the best aspects of a rotating event like this is the opportunity to share local culture. We were happy to do this through the forum’s social programme, including a folk dance session with the Tarbatu ensemble, river cruise on barge – a historic local boat type, sauna and a refreshing dip in the river, and local cuisine.
We would like to thank the City of Tartu (Kertu Vuks, Roman Meeksa, Jiri Tintera, Priit Humal) for opening the event, hosting us at the bike-share repair centre, participating in the reflection round of the urban mobility experiment, and providing bicycles for the experiment. We are also grateful to Bolt for providing e-scooters for the mobility experiment and for hosting us during the technical site visit, and to Autonomous Driving Lab for hosting us during their site visit.
We are thankful for Hedi Peterson for the highly valuable grant writing workshop tailored at applying postdoctoral research funding. Our thanks also go to Mainor Ülemiste for introducing Ülemiste City, Auve Tech for their engaging presentation and test rides, and Rail Baltica Estonia for presenting the project that will enhance cross-border mobility in the Baltics in the future.
Our sincere thanks goes to EIT Urban Mobility (Lidya González, Daniela Rodrigues, Martin Vendel) and Doctoral Training Network coordinators (Benjamin Büttner, Katharina Karrenbauer, Corinna Niederreiter, and Aaron Nichols) for their guidance, support and collaboration throughout the planning and delivery of the forum.
Now it is time for us to reflect on the event and to hand over the organisation of the Annual Forum to the next host university – Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). We very much look forward to meeting the vibrant DTN community again, next time in Madrid in September 2027.
The Mobility Lab of the University of Tartu is an interdisciplinary research group that studies human mobility and its associations with society and the environment using mobile (big) data.