Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MOVE21 (Multimodal and interconnected hubs for freight and passenger transport contributing to a zero emission 21st century)
Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-10-31
The European transport sector must be decarbonised if we are to meet our collective climate goals. Cities play a pivotal role in this transition. Cities stand for the highest emissions from the transport sector, but it is also in cities that solutions must be sought, tested and implemented. A successful transition will create ripple effects beyond immediate emissions reductions, and increase liveability and green economic opportunities in cities. Yet, efforts to decarbonise the transport sector favour piecemeal approaches with little integration between transport modes or between people and freight transport, or between governance levels in order to ensure policy coherence. The main objective of MOVE21 is to transform European cities and functional urban areas into climate neutral and connected multimodal urban nodes for smart and clean mobility and logistics. This is done by adopting an integrated approach in which all urban systems are connected and which addresses both goods and passenger transport together. The project improves efficiency, capacity utilisation, accessibility and innovation capacity in urban nodes and functional urban areas. MOVE21 tests, replicates and upscales zero emission solutions in urban nodes, and combines technological and non-technological innovations to decarbonize mobility solutions for people and freight. It also focuses on place-making strategies, social cohesion and active modes of transport in an effort to increase liveability in European cities. Finally, it seeks to establish new forms of governance and coordination between cities and regions on TEN-T corridor, and has an ambitious outreach programme to reach out to all urban nodes in Europe.
In the first one and a half year of the project, the main focus has been to set-up three Living Labs in in Oslo, Gothenburg and Hamburg. The Living Labs co-create zero emission solutions, and test and implement measures at specific locations in the cities. The project has defined knowledge needs in the three cities and investigated spatial, governance and technological contexts to determine how to best implement specific measures. Furthermore, the project has set up a framework for evaluation and done a first ex-ante evaluation. It has engaged with three important replication cities (Munich, Rome and Bologna) in an ambitious two-way replication programme. Finally, the project has launched a Scan-Med Observatory in an effort to inspire new forms of governance and collaboration on TEN-T corridor level between urban nodes and between different levels of governance (local, regional, national, EU).
The project’s integrated approach ensures that impacts happen on three levels: on test site level within a city, within a city as a whole, and on EU-wide/TEN-T corridor level. The project has identified several key exploitable results that evolve around new business models and new operational models for hubs in various configurations and for combining solutions for people and freight, new business and governance models for smarter urban logistics, and for bundling of transport modes into one offer. The project will also increase knowledge on how to ensure technological interoperability and interconnectivity across transport modes, knowledge on how to increase innovation capacity and policy coherence in cities and regions and across levels of governance and sectors, as well as how to organise TEN-T corridor level collaboration and governance between urban nodes. Likely impacts will be both short and long-term in nature. Likely impacts range from reductions in climate emissions and pollution, to new economic opportunities, increased liveability and increased innovation capacity in local and regional authorities. So far, impacts from the project have mainly been on a conceptual level by getting local and regional authorities as well as the private transport sector on-board in considering urban mobility in new ways. Ultimately, the project aims to contribute to a more integrated approach to transport and urban planning, and as such will have a profound and long-lasting impact should it succeed.