Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RAIL4CITIES (Railway stations for green and socially inclusive cities)
Reporting period: 2024-07-01 to 2025-06-30
Railway stations hold a unique position in the urban landscape: they not only act as complex nodes of mobility and transport, but also as public places that can be seen as integral elements of the city. Consequently, stations have a decisive impact on their urban surroundings as places of everyday life, affecting all stakeholders including citizens and the environment.
The central ambition of RAIL4CITIES is to develop a new operational, readily available and highly applicable model of stations (SCP model), combined with a common European methodology and tool for its effective implementation. The project takes inter-dependent impediments (profit-orientated business model, complex web of agents and stakeholders, policy gaps) into account and provides decision makers with the tools to transform stations into promoters of sustainable cities.
The model is applied to 5 living labs addressing the stations’ transformation into hubs of green and active mobility (FR), energy hubs (IT), towards Transit Oriented Development (DE), into a socially-inclusive services hub with using Nature Based Solutions (PL) and services hubs enabling the 15-minute city and circular economy (BE).
The RAIL4CITIES consortium aims at addressing EU-wide issues that railways and cities are facing, and at helping railways in the achievement of their strategy and industrial plans, while helping city administrations in achieving societal and environmental goals related especially to sustainability, smart city, and mobility. The project will demonstrate how stations in terms of number of users, of metropolitan connectivity, and being a node of urban development, can be strengthened in their key role in the urban dynamics. The living labs will open up this approach into a wide field of possible applications. Understanding interactions, impacts and implications of the development of the station as a game changer from an economic, social and environmental point of view, its consequences on business and social practices, and on urban land use and how this can improve urban mobility patterns, contributes in this way to a better urban accessibility and connectivity in a sustainable way. In fact, the RAIL4CITIES outcomes will benefit to several target groups simultaneously:
• The development of the new model of stations through the identification of new economic and business drivers that, fully aligned with sustainability objectives, will generate value for railway companies, cities and citizens.
• Using impact analysis tools to create shared values for stakeholders and citizens while aligning sustainability with stakeholders’ business goals will help cities and policy makers to develop policies for supporting the model’s development and implementation, while also create synergies of investments among stakeholders (railway companies, cities, regional economy), and attract investors.
• Developing stations as mobility hubs facilitates an adequate level of interoperability of the transportation networks (international, regional and local) as the EU legislation promotes, finally positively impacting transportation efficiency for citizen and mobility users. This will be demonstrated throughout the five living labs and the open publication of the SCP model will support policy makers in the design of new policies, respectively cities to evaluate impact of the new model and develop replication strategies.
• We aim at designing a concept of a station and a EU-wide methodology that, as a public space and multi-services hub, can support the spreading of other green transport modes by an effective coordination between energy use and production. While providing added value for citizens and mobility users, it will support regional economy and social innovation sectors to identify and ramp-up new solutions.
• The engagement of a multi-stakeholder dialogue will help in developing new business models, and in studying their governance, regulations and policies, while shaping a model of the station operating as “social infrastructure”, rather than simply as a mobility infrastructure.
The central ambition of RAIL4CITIES is to develop a new operational, readily available and highly applicable model of stations (SCP model), combined with a common European methodology and tool for its effective implementation. The project takes inter-dependent impediments (profit-orientated business model, complex web of agents and stakeholders, policy gaps) into account and provides decision makers with the tools to transform stations into promoters of sustainable cities.
The model is applied to 5 living labs addressing the stations’ transformation into hubs of green and active mobility (FR), energy hubs (IT), towards Transit Oriented Development (DE), into a socially-inclusive services hub with using Nature Based Solutions (PL) and services hubs enabling the 15-minute city and circular economy (BE).
The RAIL4CITIES consortium aims at addressing EU-wide issues that railways and cities are facing, and at helping railways in the achievement of their strategy and industrial plans, while helping city administrations in achieving societal and environmental goals related especially to sustainability, smart city, and mobility. The project will demonstrate how stations in terms of number of users, of metropolitan connectivity, and being a node of urban development, can be strengthened in their key role in the urban dynamics. The living labs will open up this approach into a wide field of possible applications. Understanding interactions, impacts and implications of the development of the station as a game changer from an economic, social and environmental point of view, its consequences on business and social practices, and on urban land use and how this can improve urban mobility patterns, contributes in this way to a better urban accessibility and connectivity in a sustainable way. In fact, the RAIL4CITIES outcomes will benefit to several target groups simultaneously:
• The development of the new model of stations through the identification of new economic and business drivers that, fully aligned with sustainability objectives, will generate value for railway companies, cities and citizens.
• Using impact analysis tools to create shared values for stakeholders and citizens while aligning sustainability with stakeholders’ business goals will help cities and policy makers to develop policies for supporting the model’s development and implementation, while also create synergies of investments among stakeholders (railway companies, cities, regional economy), and attract investors.
• Developing stations as mobility hubs facilitates an adequate level of interoperability of the transportation networks (international, regional and local) as the EU legislation promotes, finally positively impacting transportation efficiency for citizen and mobility users. This will be demonstrated throughout the five living labs and the open publication of the SCP model will support policy makers in the design of new policies, respectively cities to evaluate impact of the new model and develop replication strategies.
• We aim at designing a concept of a station and a EU-wide methodology that, as a public space and multi-services hub, can support the spreading of other green transport modes by an effective coordination between energy use and production. While providing added value for citizens and mobility users, it will support regional economy and social innovation sectors to identify and ramp-up new solutions.
• The engagement of a multi-stakeholder dialogue will help in developing new business models, and in studying their governance, regulations and policies, while shaping a model of the station operating as “social infrastructure”, rather than simply as a mobility infrastructure.
The activities during the second project period were focused on the completion of the living lab operations and the consolidation of the methodology. The results are listed below.
RAIL4CITIES key innovations are the following:
• The SCP Model: A New Paradigm for Railway Stations: The Sustainable City Promoter (SCP) model is the cornerstone innovation of the RAIL4CITIES project. Unlike traditional station conceptual frameworks, the SCP model offers a multi-dimensional, flexible, and forward-looking structure for transforming railway stations into catalysts of sustainable urban development.
• A Triangulated Impact Assessment Methodology: A key innovation of RAIL4CITIES lies in its advanced impact assessment framework, designed to evaluate proposed solutions across economic, environmental, and social dimensions — _moving beyond traditional infrastructure evaluations. The methodology integrates three interconnected components: Theory of Change (ToC), Sustainable Return on Investment (S-ROI), and Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA).
• Living Labs as Real-World Innovation Environments: real-world environments where station innovations are co-created, tested, and validated in direct collaboration with local stakeholders, users, and communities.
• Integration of Urban and Rail Governance through Co-Creation: Rather than treating city and rail operators as isolated actors, the project fosters integrated governance, enabling joint planning and shared decision-making across sectors
• Operational Tools and Digital Innovations: To support replicability and real-world use, RAIL4CITIES developed several operational and digital tools, including:
- MCA & S-ROI Excel tools: Ready-to-use evaluation templates allow station managers and city partners to perform sustainable return-on-investment assessments and prioritize options based on stakeholder-defined criteria.
- KPI Mapping Tables: Linked to the fields of action, these tables allow practitioners to select and adapt indicators based on local goals, whether focused on energy reduction, service equity, or spatial reuse.
- MIRO-based participatory templates: Interactive digital canvases enable effective online and hybrid workshops, particularly for ideation, value mapping, and ToC creation.
- UrbanistAI visualizations: Some Living Labs used AI-generated visuals to prototype physical changes to the station and surrounding space (e.g. community gardens, mobility hubs, inclusive seating areas), supporting public dialogue and iteration.
• The SCP Model: A New Paradigm for Railway Stations: The Sustainable City Promoter (SCP) model is the cornerstone innovation of the RAIL4CITIES project. Unlike traditional station conceptual frameworks, the SCP model offers a multi-dimensional, flexible, and forward-looking structure for transforming railway stations into catalysts of sustainable urban development.
• A Triangulated Impact Assessment Methodology: A key innovation of RAIL4CITIES lies in its advanced impact assessment framework, designed to evaluate proposed solutions across economic, environmental, and social dimensions — _moving beyond traditional infrastructure evaluations. The methodology integrates three interconnected components: Theory of Change (ToC), Sustainable Return on Investment (S-ROI), and Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA).
• Living Labs as Real-World Innovation Environments: real-world environments where station innovations are co-created, tested, and validated in direct collaboration with local stakeholders, users, and communities.
• Integration of Urban and Rail Governance through Co-Creation: Rather than treating city and rail operators as isolated actors, the project fosters integrated governance, enabling joint planning and shared decision-making across sectors
• Operational Tools and Digital Innovations: To support replicability and real-world use, RAIL4CITIES developed several operational and digital tools, including:
- MCA & S-ROI Excel tools: Ready-to-use evaluation templates allow station managers and city partners to perform sustainable return-on-investment assessments and prioritize options based on stakeholder-defined criteria.
- KPI Mapping Tables: Linked to the fields of action, these tables allow practitioners to select and adapt indicators based on local goals, whether focused on energy reduction, service equity, or spatial reuse.
- MIRO-based participatory templates: Interactive digital canvases enable effective online and hybrid workshops, particularly for ideation, value mapping, and ToC creation.
- UrbanistAI visualizations: Some Living Labs used AI-generated visuals to prototype physical changes to the station and surrounding space (e.g. community gardens, mobility hubs, inclusive seating areas), supporting public dialogue and iteration.