AccesS Suite

The AccesS Suite

Energy Efficient and Sustainable Design Tool (EESDT)

Energy Comfortness Tool (ECT)

ErgoFlow

Virtual User Models (VUM) and VUM-based Virtual Humans

3D Scenarios Simulator

Building Operation and Management System (BOMS)

EV Charging Optimizer

Accessibility Assessment Tool

More details are available in Deliverable D7.2

The AccesS Suite

The AccesS Suite is a unified, modular, and customizable platform, designed to support accessible, inclusive, and sustainable urban built environments. Its primary goals are to integrate the digital tools developed throughout the project, to provide users with efficient and secure access, and to enable the system to be deployed on a large scale across different pilot sites. The platform emphasizes accessibility, usability, and adaptability, ensuring that people with disabilities and older adults can interact effectively with the system.

The AccesS Suite offers a comprehensive toolbox that consolidates software components, service modules, visualization interfaces, and hardware adapters into a single platform. By providing a modular structure and a unified authentication service, the platform reduces complexity, improves interoperability, and allows tailored configurations for specific pilot needs. More information about each tool within the AccesS Suite is provided below.

More details are available in Deliverable D4.1

Energy Efficient and Sustainable Design Tool (EESDT)

The Energy Efficient and Sustainable Design Tool (EESDT) is a digital solution that supports the transition toward energy-efficient, smart, and sustainable buildings. It provides a practical environment for designers, engineers, and facility managers to explore and compare renovation and smartification scenarios before they are implemented in real buildings.

In practice, the EESDT tool uses BIM/IFC models to explore how different renovation options and smart technologies affect building performance and smart readiness. Users can enrich building models with the required information, establish a reliable baseline according to current performance, and test different improvement options (such as insulation upgrades, HVAC improvements, renewable energy systems or smart controls).

The EESDT tool compares scenarios through energy KPIs, SRI results, and decision-support outputs, helping users understand the expected impact of each option before implementation. By reducing manual modelling effort and presenting results through an interactive interface, EESDT makes it easier for designers, engineers, and facility managers to identify suitable renovation pathways and support decisions with transparent, data-based evidence.

More details are available in Deliverable D4.2

Energy Comfortness Tool (ECT)

The Energy Comfortness Tool (ECT) provides a framework for assessing indoor environmental quality in connection with energy performance. It introduces the concept of “comfortness”, an integrated indicator that combines thermal, visual, acoustic, and air-quality conditions into a single, interpretable measure. By linking these comfort dimensions with energy simulation results, ECT supports a balanced evaluation of both occupant well-being and building efficiency.

The ECT tool operates by translating sensor data, BIM-based inputs, and simulation results into comfortness indicators. Users can evaluate each comfort domain separately or review them as one overall comfortness score. By selecting specific spaces, time periods, and occupant profiles, users can identify where indoor conditions may not meet the needs of different groups. At the same time, the ECT tool connects comfort outcomes with energy demand, helping designers, engineers, and facility managers understand comfort-energy trade-offs, prioritise interventions, and support more inclusive, evidence-based building operation and design.

More details are available in Deliverable D4.3

ErgoFlow

Through ErgoFlow, the AccesS project supports furniture product designers in creating furniture and interior elements that comply with ergonomic principles, usability standards, and accessibility requirements. The module focuses on products that can be used comfortably and independently by older adults and people with disabilities, while helping to reduce physical strain and improve everyday usability.

ErgoFlow helps designers, architects, and product developers assess whether furniture is ergonomic, accessible, and comfortable before it is used in real spaces. Users can upload 3D furniture models, enter key dimensions and accessibility-related parameters, and receive an objective evaluation based on recognised ergonomic and accessibility standards. The tool highlights critical design aspects such as seat height, clearances, reachability, safety features, and user-space dimensions, showing how even small deviations can affect usability and comfort. By generating clear scores, reports, and design recommendations, ErgoFlow supports better product decisions and helps create more inclusive, human-centred interiors.

More details are available in Deliverable D5.1

Virtual User Models (VUM) and VUM-based Virtual Humans

AccesS uses Virtual User Models (VUMs) and VUM-based Virtual Humans (VHs) to represent older adults and people with disabilities in a structured and simulation-ready way. Each VUM is a semantic, data-driven profile that includes anthropometric parameters and human factors influencing physical and digital accessibility. VUM-based Virtual Humans (VHs) provide a 3D embodiment of these characteristics for use in simulation environments. Together, they provide the basis for more realistic testing of how different users interact with buildings, products, and urban spaces, moving accessibility evaluation beyond generic assumptions about an “average” user.

The module turns diverse user characteristics into reusable digital profiles and 3D simulation-ready avatars. Users can define visual, mobility, auditory, cognitive, and anthropometric characteristics (such as reach, strength, walking ability, visual acuity, hearing thresholds and reaction speed). These profiles can then be embodied as VHs, including relevant body characteristics and assistive devices, and used in 3D simulation environments. The resulting profiles and avatars allow designers, researchers, and accessibility experts to test whether specific users can move through spaces, reach controls, perceive information, or interact safely with building elements. By making these user-specific limitations visible early in the design process, the module helps identify potential barriers, compare design alternatives, and support more inclusive, evidence-based decisions.

More details are available in Deliverable D5.2

3D Scenarios Simulator

The 3D Scenarios Simulator is a central component of the AccesS simulation toolkit, enabling realistic, data-driven evaluation of how VUM-based Virtual Humans interact with buildings and urban spaces. It brings together 3D environments, Virtual Humans (VHs), scenario definition, and simulation execution to assess accessibility challenges in practical contexts. By combining movement simulation, interaction modelling, and sensory disability modelling, the module helps evaluate not only whether a space meets formal requirements, but also how different users may experience and interact with it.

With this simulator, 3D building or urban models can be prepared as interactive environments in which user-specific situations are tested before implementation. Users can define realistic scenarios (such as moving through a space, opening a door, using a switch, or interacting with furniture), and run them with different Virtual User Models (VUMs). The tool then produces assessment results, including critical errors, warnings, joint-force information, reachability issues, and potential fatigue risks. These outputs help designers, consultants, and accessibility experts understand where barriers may occur, which user groups may be affected, and what design aspects require improvement. By identifying these issues early, the simulator reduces the risk of costly changes later and supports more inclusive, evidence-based design decisions.

More details are available in Deliverable D6.1

Building Operation and Management System (BOMS)

The Building Operation and Management System (BOMS) is an intelligent decision-support tool designed to improve real-time monitoring and adaptive optimisation of building operations. It uses smart sensors, IoT devices, forecasting models, and data-driven analytics to help buildings respond more effectively to changing indoor conditions, energy patterns, and user needs.

BOMS supports building operation by translating real-time sensor data into clear monitoring results, forecasts, and operational recommendations. Through its dashboard, users can track indoor conditions, energy consumption, renewable energy production, and alarms across pilot buildings in one unified interface. The Forecasting Engine helps anticipate future conditions (such as CO₂ levels, temperature, energy demand or solar production), while the Decision Support System translates this information into actionable reports for comfort, energy efficiency, and anomaly detection.

By combining live monitoring, predictive insights, and practical recommendations, BOMS helps facility managers and building operators move from reactive problem-solving to proactive building management, improving comfort, reducing energy costs, and supporting more reliable and sustainable operation. The system is also location-aware, incorporating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to include accessibility featured based on geographic and site-specific data.

More details are available in Deliverable D6.3

EV Charging Optimizer

This modular digital tool was conceived to manage EV charging in a way that balances the needs of drivers, charging point operators (CPOs), and the local grid. The optimizer is based on predictive and optimisation algorithms that align charging demand with grid capacity while safeguarding accessibility requirements. Its overarching goal is to provide a smarter, safer, and more inclusive charging process that contributes to the sustainable expansion of e-mobility charging infrastructures.

The tool helps EV drivers, charging point operators, and building managers use charging infrastructure more efficiently, reliably, and inclusively. It analyses charging sessions, station usage, and grid metering data to identify peak demand, optimise charging schedules, and reduce stress on the local grid.

For drivers, the EV Charging Optimizer provides clear information such as popular charging times and expected station availability, helping them plan charging sessions and reduce waiting time. For operators, it offers advanced analytics, power consumption profiles, load-shifting results, and infrastructure scalability assessments, helping them anticipate future limitations and plan expansion pathways while avoiding unnecessary grid reinforcements. By excluding accessible charging stations from load-shifting, the module ensures that elderly users and people with disabilities are not disadvantaged by optimisation measures. Its architecture also anticipates future e-mobility developments, including the potential integration of bidirectional charging.

More details are available in Deliverable D7.1

Accessibility Assessment Tool

The Accessibility Assessment Tool is a digital platform developed to support the systematic evaluation of accessibility features in buildings and built environments. By combining simulation-based testing with structured evaluation mechanisms, the platform supports the rigorous analysis of design alternatives and assists stakeholders in identifying potential accessibility barriers during the planning and evaluation stages of the built environment.

The tool supports accessibility evaluation by translating complex requirements into structured scores, visual results, and standardised reports. Users can create assessments and templates, and define weight values for Disability Types (DT), Assessment Dimensions (AD), and Evaluation Criteria (EC). Based on this hierarchical scoring model, the tool calculates outputs such as the Overall Building Score, Total Impact Scores for disability groups, importance values and actual-versus-optimal performance gaps. These results help users identify which barriers have the strongest impact, which user groups are most affected, and which design or operational improvements should be prioritised.

By generating dashboards and printable PDF reports, the tool makes accessibility assessments easier to compare, document, and communicate with building owners, designers, facility managers, auditors, and public authorities.