Today I was honored to receive the TRA VISIONS Senior Researcher Award at Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2024 in Dublin, in the presence of important figures such as the Irish Minister Jack Chambers.
I consider such award as an important milestone in my mixed industrial-academic career, with a sharp focus on railway transportation research. It started 20+ years ago with my master's degree dissertation on model-based dependability evaluation of ERTMS/ETCS, in cooperation with Ansaldo (now Hitachi Rail).
That was the beginning of a long journey that allowed me to visit many countries and explore several aspects of verification and validation, model-based risk assessment, resilient software engineering, and trustworthy AI for critical cyber-physical systems and secure infrastructures, all essential enablers for next-generation intelligent train control and smart-railways.
I would like to dedicate this award to my family (with my wife Liana Ricci - MBA being the only one available here on LinkedIn), always there to support me and tolerate my swinging mood, and my father, passed away a few years ago, whom I owe my passion for engineering since I was a kid.
I also share this award with all people who worked with me in recent railway-related research projects, especially Prof. Valeria Vittorini (Europe's Rail Joint Undertaking RAILS S2R Project coordinator), for her invaluable support and dedication in all these years.
Here is the long (and certainly incomplete) list of people and colleagues I would like to thank because they all contributed to this award through their long lasting support, cooperation, and effective teamwork: Armando Carrillo Zanuy, Stefano Ricci, Lorenzo De Donato, Ruifan Tang, Nikola Bešinović, Rob Goverde, Zhiyuan Lin, Ronghui Liu, Stefano Marrone, Stefano Marrone, Elena Napoletano, Roberto Nardone, Stefania Santini, Egidio Quaglietta, Arturo Amendola, Pietro Marmo PMP®, Leonardo Impagliazzo, Antonio Orazzo, Cristina Seceleanu, Muhammad Usman Sanwal, Tina Pragliola, Mauro Caporuscio, Josef Noll, Alfio Pappalardo, Mariana Esposito, Ph.D., Andrea Gaglione, Ph.D., Francesco Vitale, Ruggieri Antonio, Mauro José Pappaterra, Andrea Bondavalli, Rosaria Esposito, Andrea Emilio Rizzoli.
A special thank goes to Prof. Mazzocca Nicola, former mentor and supervisor, without whom this journey would have never started.
I take this opportunity to also thank TRA' staff and committees members for the excellent job they did to ensure the smooth organization and the big success of this year's event, with over 4000 participants.
Finally, although my research nowadays covers several domains, this award represents a further and strong motivation for me to continue providing my humble contribution to safer, socially inclusive, and greener transportation, which is a key factor for a more sustainable future for us and our children.