**Preface to "SMARTI - Sustainable Multi-functional Automated Resilient Transport Infrastructure"**

The world's transport network has developed over thousands of years; emerging from the need of allowing more comfortable trips to roman soldiers to the modern smooth roads enabling modern vehicles to travel at high speed and to allow heavy airplanes to take off and land safely. However, in the last two decades the world is changing very fast in terms of population growth, mobility and business trades creating greater traffic volumes and demand for minimal disruption to users, but also challenges, such as climate change and more extreme weather events. At the same time, technology development to allow a more sustainable transport sector continue apace. It is within this environment and in close consultation with key stakeholders, that this consortium developed the vision to achieve the paradigm shift to Sustainable Multifunctional Automated and Resilient Transport Infrastructures. SMARTI ETN is a training-through-research programme that empowered Europe by forming a new generation of multi-disciplinary professionals able to conceive the future of transport infrastructures and this Special Issue is a collection of some of the scientific work carried out within this context. Enjoy the read.

The SMARTI ETN project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions for research, technological development and demonstration, under grant n.721493.

> **Davide Lo Presti, Emmanuel Chailleux, Mayca Rubio-G´amez** *Editors*

*Concept Paper*
