Mobility insights from the Smart City Expo World Congress

Source: Zag Daily

The Zag Daily team attended the recent Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, reporting on developments, innovations and discussions on a variety of urban mobility-related topics.

The scheduled sessions during the World Congress included a diverse range of discussions on mobility topics including electric and shared mobility, last-mile delivery logistics and the encouragement of behavioural change.

Nudging people towards sustainable mobility

One session explored how cities can make use of behavioural insights to promote shifts in everyday travel choices. In a keynote speech opening the session, Michael Semmer of Urban Places Lab described a typical commuter’s experience, which reveals the psychology behind the struggle to avoid the default position of choosing the car: “You’re already running late, the bus is four minutes behind, your e-bike battery was dead last time so you grab the car keys.” He continued, “the real challenge isn’t building more options. It’s helping people choose differently.”

In the following panel discussion, Ola Rynge, Chief Technology Officer of behavioural tech firm Nudgd, outlined how lasting modal shift can be achieved by combining physical infrastructure with soft interventions or prompts, also known as nudges. “You can build the bike lanes and mobility hubs but that doesn’t mean people will use them. Nudging makes it easier to choose what’s good for you and society.”

Rynge emphasised that more context-appropriate nudges are more successful than a blanket approach: “When messages are adapted to specific workplaces, schools or neighbourhoods, behaviour change can jump from 10% to 40%.”

Another panelist, Lukas Neckermann of Urban Places Lab and Neckermann Strategic Advisors, referred to strategies that combine nudging with key infrastructural policies such as removal of parking spaces – making driving less attractive, while creating more space for shared mobility stations. “The key is to build for where you want to go, not where you are.”

The tipping point for a community’s modal shift was identified at the quarter mark by Neckermann. “When 25% of your neighbours start cycling, suddenly it feels normal. Social tipping points are incredibly powerful.”

Semmer outlined how a mobility hub co-created by Urban Places Lab and EIT Urban Mobility in Basel was a collaborative effort with local residents. The hub, which houses shared bikes, e-scooters and cars, has seen good vehicle utilisation rates. He also emphasised that lasting transformation requires a flexible approach. “Mobility change is never finished. You have to measure, measure, measure and then adapt.”

Mobility resilience

Another session explored how cities can keep populations moving when crises hit. The speaker panel included Karen Vancluysen, Secretary General of the POLIS network, who highlighted how extra transport capacity, rather than being an inefficiency, is the main foundation of mobility resilience. “A resilient urban transport system should function during normal times but also in crisis – in an integrated, flexible and sustainable way.” She outlined how Europe’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) are a strategic way to prepare for unexpected scenarios. “The pandemic was a wake-up call. Cities that had multi-modal options recovered faster.”

This has been demonstrated recently in cities such as London and Brussels, where transit disruption as a result of strike action has been mitigated by populations taking to shared bike and e-scooters, seeing ridership hit record highs.

Collaboration and scaling up

One session looked into which mobility innovations look to endure into the next decade, with the contributing speakers in agreement that transport’s future will not depend on a single breakthrough technology, but instead on the way cities interlink innovation, people and policies.

Othman AlDahash, the CEO of iot squared, recommended a partnership approach, where cities, citizens and industry players work in collaboration to design and test mobility solutions. This was echoed by EIT Urban Mobility CEO Marc Rozendal, who outlined how the organisation supports cities in prototyping and scaling mobility initiatives via six-month pilot programmes in collaboration with start-ups. “Cities that are innovation-ready but lack resources can still experiment, learn and scale solutions. If we want startups to succeed, we must also innovate in public procurement.”