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Building Trustworthy AI for the Future of Rail and Mobility: Insights from the 2nd Acceleration Event in Pisa

Jun 29, 2025

| News

From June 4-6, 2025, researchers from CNR-ISTI together with MERMEC Engineering took the stage at the 2nd Acceleration Event: “Artificial Intelligence Made Easy for the Railway and Mobility Value Chain” in Calambrone, Pisa. Their joint presentation focused on one of the most critical challenges in today’s AI landscape: building trustworthiness into AI systems, especially in safety-critical sectors such as rail and mobility.

Trustworthiness as a Cornerstone for AI Adoption

During the session, the team highlighted why trust is essential for the successful adoption of AI technologies in transportation systems. Rail and mobility operators require transparent, explainable, and robust AI models—characteristics that directly influence safety, reliability, and public acceptance.

Key messages included:

  • Transparency as a prerequisite for operational acceptance

  • Explainability to support human oversight and regulatory compliance

  • Robustness and reliability to ensure safe deployment in complex, dynamic environments

  • User and stakeholder trust as a determining factor in real-world adoption

These priorities strongly align with the broader European focus on trustworthy, human-centred AI, which is also at the core of the FAITH project’s vision.

A Platform for Industry–Research Collaboration

The event brought together industry leaders, innovators, and researchers to discuss how AI can be effectively integrated across the railway and mobility value chain. Presentations, demos, and collaborative sessions created a space for examining both technical challenges and opportunities for scalable, responsible adoption.

For CNR-ISTI and MERMEC Engineering, the event served as an opportunity to illustrate how responsible-by-design AI approaches can support the sector’s digital transformation—ensuring that innovation does not come at the expense of safety or public trust.

Looking Ahead

The discussions in Pisa underline a shared commitment across Europe’s research and industrial communities: AI in mobility must be trustworthy, transparent, and aligned with societal expectations. These principles are central not only to railway applications, but also to the methodologies and large-scale pilots developed within the FAITH project.