DIGIWAY project: Safety in the mountains

The project, funded under Priority 5 “Removing cross-border obstacles,” harmonizes and links the hiking trail data of Tyrol, South Tyrol, and Trentino for digital and innovative safety solutions.

Anyone planning a mountain hike in the Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino Euroregion often encounters a border: different data formats, different difficulty scales for the trails, and fragmented information. This is precisely where the DIGIWAY project comes in. Co-funded by the European Union, the Euroregion, in collaboration with NOI Techpark, is working to break down these digital obstacles and significantly increase safety during hiking and mountaineering. The project falls under Interreg’s Priority V, which aims to eliminate administrative and other obstacles in border regions. Different digital standards are precisely such an obstacle, and DIGIWAY overcomes these barriers by creating a common and reliable database.

From January 2024 until a planned end in June 2026, the project team is working on several tangible results based on official data from the three regions:

• A uniform database: For the first time, the official geodata of hiking trails and routes from Tyrol, South Tyrol, and Trentino are being merged into a single, harmonised dataset. At the end of the project, this will be published as freely accessible Open Government Data (OGD), allowing third parties to build new applications upon it.
• Objective hazard assessment with “Kovacs-Layers”: An innovative GIS model is being developed that visualises objective hazard potentials directly on the map. Two layers show, on a 2.5-meter grid, the general exposure of a trail section as well as the specific risk of falling in the immediate vicinity. This allows for a significantly more precise risk assessment.
• “Translation” of difficulty ratings: To make the different rating systems (e.g., SAT scale in Italy vs. the Tyrolean system) comparable, a translation model is being developed. It evaluates trails based on technical difficulty, hazards, and alpine risks, assigning them comparable values.
• Automated software solution: The entire data harmonisation is not done manually but through a dynamic, GIS-based software solution. It is designed to be multilingual and to process updates to official trail data in real time.

Through the close involvement of stakeholders such as mountain rescue services, alpine clubs, and tourism organisations, it is ensured that the developed solutions are practical and offer real added value for safety in the Alps.

More about the DIGIWAY project: Euregio: progetto Digiway per escursioni in montagna più sicure | Euregio Tirolo-Alto Adige-Trentino