We are delighted to share that on June 17, 2025 our student Nikola Topić, univ. mag. ing. traff. held a presentation at the prestigious automotive industry company Rimac Technology in Zagreb, Croatia, where he presented his master’s thesis research titled „Co-simulation empowered multicriteria analysis of autonomous vehicles impact on traffic flow“, conducted under the mentorship of Dr. Krešimir Kušić and Nino Šehagić, univ. mag. ing. traff. (link to the thesis). In his work, he applied the state-of-the-art CARLA-SUMO co-simulation framework to perform a multi-criteria analysis of the impact of various autonomous vehicles penetration rates on motorway traffic performance, safety, and energy consumption across different traffic volumes and operational conditions. His visit was hosted by Nino Šehagić, Head of Program Management for Powertrain and Electronics at Rimac Technology.
We extend our sincere thanks to all the staff at Rimac Technology for the engaging discussions during Nikola’s presentation, and we look forward to future collaborations. We also express our gratitude to the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences for fostering an interdisciplinary and innovative academic curriculum that provides our students with high-quality education, enabling them to conduct contemporary research aligned with the latest industry demands. Special thanks to MathWorks, and Mr. János Kertész, Regional Sales Manager – Education & SDR/ISR Team Lead (SciEngineer), for providing Nikola with a student research license for the RoadRunner software. We also thank Nikola’s co-supervisor, Nino Šehagić, univ. mag. ing. traff., from the company Rimac Technology, for his valuable expert advice from the perspective of the automotive industry. Special thanks to Professors Vinny Cahill and Ivana Dusparic from Trinity College Dublin for their valuable expert advice, which contributed to the extension of Nikola’s thesis into a conference paper. We also acknowledge the support of the Croatian Science Foundation of this research under grant MOBODL-2023-12-5261.
Finally, we wish Nikola all the best in his future career and hope he continues to pursue the impactful work he has started.
