The TRA2026 project aims to support the organisation of the TRA conference in Budapest in 2026 and deliver the related competitions. This proposal aligns with the specified criteria of the call, namely: • It addresses the expected outcomes, including enhanced visibility of the transport sector, contributions to advancing knowledge, improved cooperation opportunities, as well as increased attractiveness of transport-related studies, as well as recognition of outstanding achievements in this field. • It features a partnership representing the host country and city authorities, as well as the academic and professional realm, with a strong international reach. The proposal involves partners with experience across all transport modes and cross-modal themes, as well as in organising past TRA conferences and researcher competitions. A member state responsible for the Council of the European Union in 2026 is also represented in the consortium. • The partners will work together and with relevant stakeholders, drawing on the traditions of previous TRA editions to bring together key actors in the transport sector to find joint solutions for current and upcoming transport-related challenges.

Developing evidence and understanding concerning Global Challenges and their underlying parameters is rapidly becoming a vital challenge for modern societies. Various examples, such as health care, the transition of green technologies or the evolution of the global climate up to hazards and stress tests for the financial sector demonstrate the complexity of the involved systems and underpin their interdisciplinary as well as their globality. This becomes even more obvious if coupled systems are considered: problem statements and their corresponding parameters are dependent on each other, which results in interconnected simulations with a tremendous overall complexity. Although the process for bringing together the different communities has already started within the Centre of Excellence for Global Systems Science (CoeGSS), the importance of assisted decision making by addressing global, multi-dimensional problems is more important than ever. Global decisions with their dependencies cannot be based on incomplete problem assessments or gut feelings anymore, since impacts cannot be foreseen without an accurate problem representation and its systemic evolution. Therefore, HiDALGO bridges that shortcoming by enabling highly accurate simulations, data analytics and data visualisation but also by providing knowledge on how to integrate the various workflows and the corresponding data.