On this year’s Girls’ Day, the Institute for Transport Studies opened its doors and offered interested female students exciting insights into the world of transportation planning and engineering—in cooperation with the Institute of Highway and Railroad Engineering.
The varied program included several hands-on stations: In the road design section, the participants examined accident analyses and learned how to design safe roads. In the traffic engineering section, they conducted a traffic count, learned how traffic signal systems work, and viewed relevant simulations. Afterward, they had the opportunity to get hands-on in the road construction engineering section and create a Marshall test specimen to better understand the properties of asphalt.
Girls’ Day aims to inspire female students early on to pursue careers in fields where women have historically been underrepresented, and to provide them with practical insights and guidance for their future academic and career choices.

From April 14 to 16, 2026, Lucas Schuhmacher, Robin Andre, and Tim Wörle attended the 17th International Conference on Ambient Systems, Networks and Technologies (ANT) in Istanbul, Turkey. The conference provided an excellent platform for exchanging ideas on current research topics, particularly in the field of agent-based modeling in transportation.
As a special highlight Robin Andre, Pia Tulodetzki, and Peter Vortisch received the Best Paper Award for their paper titled “Fast and Scalable Population Synthesis Using Equivalence Classes and Hierarchical Distribution.” The following additional contributions were presented:

• Synchronizing Demand and Supply in Agent-Based Ride-Pooling Simulations: The mobiTopp–MATSim Live Coupling by Gabriel Wilkes, Robin Andre, Nico Kühnel, Martin Kagerbauer, and Peter Vortisch 
• Modeling Tour-Based Mode Choice in Agent-Based Travel Demand Models by Lucas Schuhmacher, Gabriel Wilkes, Martin Kagerbauer, and Peter Vortisch
• Modeling Leisure-related Agent-Place Relationships in Agent-based Travel Demand Models by Tim Wörle, Jan Ellmers, Jelle Kübler, Martin Kagerbauer, and Peter Vortisch

The conference papers will be published soon in the official proceedings. We would like to thank the organizers for hosting such a well-organized and inspiring event.

As part of the institute’s long-standing tradition, this year’s English seminar was once again held with a total of 22 participants from various transport research institutes across the German-speaking region (TU Berlin, TU Munich, TU Graz, University of Stuttgart, BOKU Vienna, ETH Zurich).

The aim of the seminar was to deepen participants’ understanding and linguistic proficiency in English, thereby further enhancing their ability to engage with the international scientific community. As in previous years, the seminar included the translation of scientific texts, the revision and stylistic improvement of participants’ own abstracts, subject-specific discussions, the preparation of paper reviews, and the delivery of presentations. These activities enabled participants to systematically develop both their written and spoken English skills within an academic context.

This year’s seminar took place in Schladming, Austria—a region renowned for its impressive alpine landscape and diverse winter sports opportunities. In addition to the intensive seminar program, the surroundings offered numerous opportunities for shared activities such as skiing and winter hiking. These contributed to continuing academic exchange beyond the formal sessions and further strengthening collaboration between institutions. Overall, the English seminar in Schladming once again proved to be a highly enriching experience for all participants.