LIFELINES: Living transport Infrastructure For Europe: Linking Innovation, Nature, and Economic Sustainability
HORIZON-CL5-2026-01-D6-07
Europe’s transport infrastructure underpins economic competitiveness, cohesion, and mobility, yet faces growing pressures from climate extremes, ageing assets, resource scarcity, and biodiversity loss. Roads, railways, and ports remain material- and emissionintensive, fragment ecosystems, and are often managed through reactive approaches that underuse data, lifecycle evidence, and nature-based solutions, leading to rising costs, service disruptions, and environmental impacts.
LIFELINES addresses these challenges by delivering an integrated, lifecycle-based approach to circular, climate-resilient, and naturepositive transport infrastructure. The project links corridor-level resource and asset data with validated innovative materials, embedded nature-based solutions, interoperable digital systems, and harmonized sustainability and resilience assessment methods. Through large-scale demonstrations across roads, railways, and ports in diverse TEN-T environments, LIFELINES advances solutions from TRL 5–6 to TRL 7+, validating performance under live traffic, operational constraints, and climate stress. The project combines high-share recycled and recovered materials, digital twins, AI-assisted monitoring, Digital Product Passports, and co-designed naturebased interventions to optimize whole-life emissions, resilience, circularity, and biodiversity outcomes. Integrated LCA, LCC, resilience modelling, and multi-criteria decision analysis provide decision-ready evidence for infrastructure owners and authorities.
LIFELINES translates pilot results into procurement guidance, standardization pathways, and governance models, enabling replication and market uptake across the European transport network. By connecting innovation, nature, and economic sustainability within real infrastructure corridors, LIFELINES supports Europe’s transition to resilient, low-emission, and nature-positive transport systems.
MEMBERS
1 UNIVERSITETET I AGDER
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA
OLYMPIA ODOS ANONYMI ETAIRIA PARACHORISIS GIA
ABO AKADEMI
ECOLOGIC INSTITUT GEMEINNUTZIGE GMBH
UNIVERSIDAD DE VIGO
AUTORIDAD PORTUARIA DE BILBAO
Oy Kaskisten Satama-Kaskö Hamn Ab
ELSAMEX GESTION DE INFRAESTRUCTURAS S.L.
NORSUS NORSK INSTITUTT FOR BAEREKRAFTSFORSKNING
RETE FERROVIARIA ITALIANA
Infrarail srl
ESTRAHUB LTD
ArcGeo
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
BRUNEL UNIVERSITY LONDON
ETHNICON METSOVION POLYTECHNION
Serbian ITS Association
FERROVIE DELLO STATO ITALIANE SPA
The participation of Applied Geotechnologies Research Group has been partially supported by Universidade de Vigo (Axudas propias á investigación da Universidade de Vigo, convocatoria 2026).