PTV Group opens new office in Spain to work on Barcelona’s CARNET research platform

The German transportation software provider PTV is continuing its global expansion and has now opened its first office in Spain, as part of the company’s long-term goal of closing the gap between the automobile industry and urban mobility.

In the company’s newly-created branch office in Barcelona, PTV mobility experts for both traffic and logistics planning and optimization will support local customers and partners. PTV will also recruit locally and augment its existing team with local expertise and future talent. Customers will profit from Spanish speaking PTV software experts being close to hand and truly localized customer support and after-sales services.

Barcelona is on its way to becoming a smart city, and to further this ambition, the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in Barcelona, Volkswagen Group Research and SEAT recently founded the Cooperative Automotive Research Network (CARNET) cooperation platform. PTV has now joined the group in addition to other partners from the automotive industry and the sciences.

Together with CARNET, PTV is examining innovative transport concepts for Barcelona, including the establishment of an individual virtual mobility laboratory, where it will be possible to play through and evaluate various ‘what-if’ scenarios for the metropolitan region. Public authorities are also playing an important role in the project, as ultimately they will make the decisions about future transport planning measures.

In recent years, PTV has intensified its activities in Spain and increasingly deployed partners and direct employees in the region. Many companies are already taking advantage of the company’s expertise in traffic optimization and transport logistics.

The company’s regional leader of logistics issues is Pablo Pedrosa, who has worked for PTV since 2014. At the start of this year, the company scored a coup by hiring Jaume Barceló (right), the former TSS co-founder and developer of Aimsun microscopic traffic simulation software and a globally acclaimed and recognized emeritus professor and scientific director at UPC.

Barceló, who is now a strategic consultant at PTV, explained, “New technologies and social developments continually reveal new perspectives for how mobility will impact our lives in the future. I look forward to actively advancing exciting new topics and new mobility solutions for the PTV Group in Spain and around the world in my new role.”