As part of the first edition (2020-22) of the Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC), participating cities were supported in their green and digital twin transition. The Cities selected a specific thematic track under which they established their ambitions for the ICC programme.
This sixth article on the subject focuses on the achievements of cities working on the supply chains, logistics and the economics of mobility thematic track. This track focused on improving cross city and in-city supply chain resilience by increasing resource independence and the ability to self-supply. It targeted a reduction in travel congestion and aimed to drive economic growth through improved mobility. Over the course of the first edition of the ICC, we saw different geopolitical developments and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted the link between well-functioning supply chains and the economic and societal health of cities.
23 ICC cities worked under the supply chains, logistics and the economics of mobility thematic track and designed 46 solutions. Most solutions under this thematic track aim at reducing the traffic in the city centre and replacing cars by greener alternatives and developing Mobility as a Service. You can find below a selection of these solutions.
E-connected sustainable mobility in Maribor (Slovenia)
Through the use of open data platforms, the municipality of Maribor, part of the Slovenian Towns Association consortia, worked on e-connected sustainable mobility. Over the ICC period, they established an efficient and user-friendly digital system to collect data on sustainable mobility in the city. One of the key objectives of the platform is therefore to have a transparent interface for decision-makers, and other stakeholders to examine and download data on sustainable transportation. Additionally, another objective was to monitor individuals' travel patterns through yearly surveys to subtly encourage them to adopt more eco-friendly forms of transportation within the city.
The sustainable mobility plan in Pescara
The city of Pescara (Italy) achieved many great successes including, but not only, the growth of sustainable mobility on an urban scale, especially by bicycle, on foot, with electric scooters. This growth concern both daily mobility for study and work (Pesos, Biciplan, Pedibus program), and unpredictable mobility (for example for leisure) of city users like tourists, and other occasional users of metropolitan services.
Explore Porto: a traffic web application
The city of Porto (Portugal) has created Explore.Porto, a web application which aims at providing information on points of interest and mobility solutions and signalling devices points spread throughout the city. A citizen, or visitor, equipped with a smartphone can instantly get information on the place where they are standing and its surroundings, as well as the best route to get anywhere. Beside only helping citizens in their mobility, the web application also helped to reduce unnecessary environmental emissions due to the optimisation of routes.
The support from ICC helped Skelleftea (Sweden) organise workshops to identify the key steps in establishing mobility hubs in the city, taking into account the special needs based on their arctic location and sparse population in places. The mobility hubs created a combined parking complex with mobility services such as carpool options and many other services. This initiative provides mobility in a more efficient way using shared resources and public transport. The city also deployed autonomous shuttles to connect smaller, remote villages to main bus lines. All together, these initiatives will result in more attractive public transport and more individualized solutions for the citizens and visitors of Skellefteå.
Discover all the ICC cities’ deliverables here.