Comitato Scientifico

Gaetano Valenti is a Transport Engineer and Research Manager at ENEA, with expertise in transport system innovation for sustainable mobility. His research focuses on transport system modelling and analysis, decision-support tools for urban mobility planning and traffic management, pilot deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), emerging paradigms in urban mobility and energy transition and efficiency in the transport sector. He has contributed to several national and EU-funded projects supporting the development, testing and deployment of advanced transport and mobility solutions. He is the author and co-author of numerous scientific articles, technical reports, strategic studies and software copyrights. He serves on the Board of Directors of Consorzio TRAIN (Consortium for Research and Development of Innovative Transport Technologies) and represents ENEA at EIT Urban Mobility.

Maria Pia Valentini is a Transport Engineer and Research Manager at ENEA, with expertise in electric mobility, transport system modeling, freight logistics, public transport, intelligent transport systems (ITS), and the technical and economic evaluation of transport infrastructures. She actively contributes to national strategies for sustainable mobility, evaluating energy and environmental impacts of transport policies. A co-author of numerous scientific and outreach publications, she also delivers training for undergraduate and postgraduate students and holds copyrights for software tools developed to support applied and demonstrative research. Maria Pia serves on the Scientific Board of the TRAIN Consortium, focused on technological innovation in transport and energy, and is an active member of AGENS, one of Italy’s leading associations representing public transport operators

Francesco Vellucci is a mechanical engineer who graduated with honours from La Sapienza University of Rome in 1999. After gaining experience in industrial combustion and electric traction, he joined the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) in 2009. At ENEA, he is part of the expert group involved in numerous national and European research projects focused on sustainable mobility systems and technologies. His work primarily addresses energy storage solutions with lithium batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, as well as related infrastructure and charging/refuelling procedures. Francesco joins the technical committees of many national and international organizations (CEI, CUNA, H2IT, EBA, Batteries Europe) and acts as Italy’s national delegate/contact person for initiatives such as IEA-HEV-TCP and SET-Plan Action 7 “On Batteries.” Since 2023, he has led ENEA’s Sustainable Mobility and Transport Laboratory. He is the author of more than 80 scientific publications and many technical reports.

Chiara Colombaroni is an Associate Professor of Transport Systems Engineering at the Department of Civil, Constructional and Environmental Engineering (DICEA), Sapienza University of Rome, where she teaches courses of Freight Transport and Logistics and Transport System Design. Her research focuses on transportation planning and system modelling, including traffic flow, driver behaviour, network design, and the exploitation of big data for mobility analysis. She has participated in national and international research projects, including work on multi-level traffic analysis and urban mobility within the MOST PNRR initiative, and has collaborated with institutions such as CNIT and ENEA on transport system optimisation and electrification studies. Colombaroni holds a Ph.D. in Infrastructure and Transport Engineering from Sapienza, and her publications are widely cited in the field of intelligent transportation systems.

Pierluigi Coppola, Ph.D. in Road Infrastructure and Transportation Systems, is Full Professor of Transportation Planning at Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and guest lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).His research interests include Land-Use and Transports Interactions, sustainable urban mobility planning, travel demand behavior modeling and forecasting. He is author of more than 130 articles in scientific journals and conference proceedings, and Editor-in-chief of Case Studies on Transport Policy (Elsevier) as well as member of the editorial boards of transportation research journals. He has been Chair of the Board of the Association for European Transport (AET) and is Steering Committee member of the World Conference of Transportation Research Society (WCTRs). Prof. Coppola has been involved in several transportation projects in Europe. He is expert advisor of the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and Coordinator of Pillar 2 on Transport of the European Strategy of the Adriatic-Ionian Region (EUSAIR).

Roberta Di Pace received the MSc. and Ph.D. degrees in Transportation from the University of Naples “Federico II”, in 2005 and 2009, respectively. Since 2021 she is an associate professor in Transportation Engineering with the Dep. of Civil Eng. at the University of Salerno. Her research and teaching activities focus on connected cooperative and automated mobility, intelligent transportation systems; advanced traveller information systems; traffic flow modelling and control; network optimization; transportation networks modelling and simulation; and smart/sustainable mobility. She is author of more than 150 articles in scientific journals and conference proceedings. She has participated in national and international research projects. She is an Academic Editor for IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Journal of Advanced Transportation, Mathematical Problems in Engineering, Smart Cities.