We’re delighted to announce that the project Neuro-symbolic Ethical Safe Traffic has been selected for funding by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) under the “AI Ecosystems 2025: AI for Tech & AI for Green” call!

NEST is coordinated by Ezio Bartocci, Professor at the Research Unit Cyber-Physical Systems at TU Wien. The project team includes Agata Ciabattoni, Professor and head of the Research Unit Theory and Logic, and Martin Tappler. Ezio leads a consortium of academic and industrial partners from TU Wien, the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), and Kapsch TrafficCom AG – Intelligent Traffic & Toll Solutions. NEST is endowed with €1 million.

NEST addresses a key challenge in urban mobility: designing traffic control systems that are not only efficient but also fair, ethical, and transparent for all road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, public transport users, and vehicles. Current traffic control solutions rely largely on static models and manual tuning, limiting their ability to adapt to dynamic traffic conditions and account for vulnerable users. The project develops a neuro-symbolic traffic control approach that combines learning-based methods with symbolic normative reasoning. Its goal is to create traffic control systems that are adaptive and high-performing through reinforcement and imitation learning, ethically grounded through formal representations of norms and fairness constraints, and transparent and explainable through verifiable, human-interpretable models. By combining Hybrid AI, generative AI, and search-based software engineering, NEST will generate rich, norm-relevant urban traffic scenarios using the Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) framework and investigate large language model–based methods for translating natural-language normative requirements into formal logic. NEST is strategically aligned with national and European AI initiatives, including the FWF Cluster of Excellence Bilateral AI, AI Factories at AIT, and large-scale computational infrastructures such as the Vienna Scientific Cluster and the AIT AI Cluster, supporting scalability, reproducibility, and sustainable impact.

NEST is funded by the FFG Austrian Research Promotion Agency. The FFG is the central national funding agency and strengthens Austria’s innovative capacity. The “AI Ecosystems 2025: AI for Tech & AI for Green” is an initiative by the FFG for applied research, technological development, and innovation. The FFG supports industry-driven R&D, strengthens cooperation between science and businesses, and facilitates the translation of research results into market-ready solutions. The FFG’s AI Ecosystems 2025 call provides EUR 6.48 million in funding for projects in the field of artificial intelligence, to strengthen Austria’s AI innovation ecosystem through collaborative, application-oriented research.

Congratulations to Ezio, Agata, and Martin on this excellent achievement!

Curious about our other news? Subscribe to our news feed, calendar, or newsletter, or follow us on social media.