MAPTur Project Featuring ICM UW Selected under the INFOSTRATEG Program

“MAPTur” — a project by a consortium comprising the University of Warsaw (Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling and the Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies) and the AGH University of Krakow — has been selected as one of two initiatives awarded funding in the 8th call of the INFOSTRATEG program by the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR). Over the coming years, the qualified research teams will compete to advance to the next phases of the program, which aims to develop an advanced AI-powered system for monitoring and forecasting tourist traffic in Poland.

The solution is designed to provide public administration and the tourism industry with tools for data-driven decision-making, supporting the sustainable development of the sector and more effective management of tourist traffic. The results of the 8th INFOSTRATEG call were announced on June 11 with the participation of: Krzysztof Gawkowski, PhD — Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs, Marcin Kulasek, PhD, Eng. — Minister of Science and Higher Education, Jakub Rutnicki — Minister of Sport and Tourism, and Prof. Jerzy Małachowski — Director of the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR). The University of Warsaw was represented, among others, by Prof. Zygmunt Lalak — Vice-Rector for Research, and Franciszek Rakowski, PhD, Eng. — R&D Lead for the project at ICM.

Featured Projects and Developing Competitive Technologies

The first project selected for funding, undertaken by the University of Warsaw in a consortium with the AGH University of Krakow, is the “Smart Platform for Monitoring, Analysis, and Prediction of Tourist Traffic in Poland MAPTur.” On the UW side, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling and the Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies are jointly responsible for project execution. The second project selected for funding is “exPLo AI — Smart Tourist Activity Analyzer,” implemented by the Kielce University of Technology in a consortium with the University of Silesia in Katowice and the Kielce-based company Altar.

As emphasized by Prof. Jerzy Małachowski, Director of the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR): “The execution model of this competition partially draws upon proven mechanisms used by the US agency DARPA — fostering conditions for the parallel development of competing technologies by different teams while remaining focused on achieving a specific strategic national objective. This approach motivates beneficiaries to achieve increasingly better results and create enhanced functionalities. The 44 million PLN that we plan to allocate to the contractors in total represents an investment not only in the development of AI technologies, but also in building competencies and generating long-term benefits for public administration, businesses, and Polish residents.”

The 8th call of the INFOSTRATEG program is conducted in a competitive format. The two selected research teams will develop their solutions in parallel, with their progress and results subject to regular evaluation by the National Centre for Research and Development. Progression to subsequent stages will depend both on the quality of the developed AI technologies and on their implementation potential and utility for public administration and the tourism sector. Only one project will qualify for the final phase of the program, and the outcome of the competition is expected to be a market-ready tool (by the end of 2029) supporting the monitoring, analysis, and forecasting of tourist traffic in Poland.

Smart Platform for Monitoring, Analysis and Prediction of Tourist Traffic in Poland (MAPTur)

The project “Smart Platform for Monitoring, Analysis, and Prediction of Tourist Traffic in Poland (MAPTur)” addresses the challenges associated with the lack of integrated, precise, and fault-tolerant tools for the comprehensive analysis and forecasting of trends in Poland’s tourism sector. The outputs of the MAPTur platform will find broad application across both the public and commercial sectors.

“The primary hurdles our project targets are the fragmented, low-resolution, and patchy nature of existing data, a shortage of models capable of fine-grained spatial and temporal forecasting in tourism, and a limited understanding of visitor profiles and spatial movement patterns,” explains Franciszek Rakowski, PhD, R&D Lead at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM UW). “Our multidisciplinary team combines experts in population dynamics and tourism trends with seasoned researchers in the mathematical modeling of complex population systems.”

The MAPTur project will unfold in phases, starting with the rollout of a resilient, fault-tolerant ingestion pipeline to supply the platform with input data. This will be followed by mapping real-world population movement within a secure digital twin framework. The team will then leverage deep neural networks—such as transformer and diffusion models—for both short- and long-term tourist movement forecasting, while incorporating empirical survey data and official public statistics to validate and fine-tune the algorithms. The project will culminate in the design of an intuitive, user-friendly dashboard for presenting insights.

The 8th INFOSTRATEG competition is funded nationally through a dedicated grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, supporting strategic R&D and scientific research programs.

For more details, see the official NCBR press release: https://www.gov.pl/web/ncbr/sztuczna-inteligencja-na-rzecz-rozwoju-gospodarczego-w-obszarze-turystyki [PL]

NCBR / ICM

Photo credit: NCBR