GOTHENBURG

Sweden

The City of Gothenburg is a port city with a strategic location between Oslo and Copenhagen. It has a population of around 548 000 and is Sweden’s second largest city. It was classed by Forbes as the world´s 12th most inventive city in 2013. The Gothenburg region, which spans 13 municipalities in Greater Gothenburg, has a population of 1.1 million. The Gothenburg region is right at the epicentre of Scandinavia and the Baltic States, and the gateway to a market of 190 million people. 70 % of Scandinavia´s total industrial capacity is located within a 500-km radius of the Gothenburg region and 30% of Swedish foreign trade passes through the Port of Gothenburg. Traditionally an industrial city, Gothenburg lost its shipyards in the 1970 and thus became largely dependent on the local automotive industry as a large scale employer. The city now faces the challenge of replacing the waning industrial employment with new jobs in services, new high-tech enterprises and qualified jobs in the knowledge sector. Gothenburg has drawn up ambitious strategies for city development that aim to make it one of the most progressive cities in the world concerning climate impact, energy efficiency, mobility/logistics and social inclusion.

The aim is that by 2050 the city will have a sustainable and ambitiously reduced level of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions: the average level of CO2 equivalent emission per person in Gothenburg will have to be reduced to less than 2t per person for the goal to be reached. The city has adopted an interim target which states that by 2020 emission levels of CO2 will be reduced by at least 40 % compared to the levels in 1990. Gothenburg has signed the EU Covenant of Mayors and has committed to go beyond the objectives of EU energy policy.

To foster international cooperation and innovation, the City of Gothenburg participates in many European networks and programmes; EUROCITIES, Climate-KIC (Europe’s largest public-private innovation partnership for climate change), the EIP Smart Cities and Communities, ERRIN, POLIS (President 2020-2021), LUCI and the European EIT Climate-KIC network. The City of Gothenburg is a member of 51 organizations. Six of the memberships are directly linked to the municipal government: EUROCITIES, Göteborg-Oslo cooperation, the Scandinavian arena, Cities for Children, ICLEI and the Mayors for Peace.

In recent years, substantial effort has been put in to establish strategies for the development of the city in the years to come, including strategies towards 2035. These are four guiding documents: 1. Vision Älvstaden, 2. Traffic Strategy for a Close City 3. Green Strategy for a Dense, Green City and 4. Strategy for Gothenburg 2035 Expansion Planning – jointly indicate the direction Gothenburg will develop in over the next 20 years.

The following agencies and municipal bodies will be involved in MOVE21:

Urban Transport Administration
Kretslopp och Vatten
BRG (Partner)
GOT-PARK (Partner)
Renova (Partner)
Relevant skills and experience

Overview of the first set of measures

During the spring workshops has been held with both MOVE21 partners and other stakeholders, such as property owners, through which a first set of measures and concepts has been identified. We are now in the process of validating and preparing pilots. The first set of measures will be combined with other measures along the way. This is one of the advantages in a broad innovation project – the results combined can surpass stand-alone solutions.

The first measures we are prioritizing is:

Zero emission mobility hub for service providers
MaaS integration (parking, shared bicycles, public transport)
Bicycle service concept
Goods consolidation for parcel lockers

Focus areas and test sites

Gothenburg Living Labs is working towards the vision to: Transform Gothenburg into smart zero emissions node for mobility and logistics. The project is focusing on three geographically defined test sites with different characteristics, challenges, possibilities, and visions.

In and around Nordstan, where a big shopping mall is located in the very city centre, solutions regarding micro-mobility and cyclists are under discussion, in parallel with looking on how to further develop the freight and logistics collaboration. In the Klippan, area there are comparatively much space available to further develop, which makes this a perfect test site to focus on seamless and integrated solutions to promote active modes of transportation and public transport. Lindholmen, on the other hand, is a dynamic and innovative area with large scale city development. An existing solution for consolidation of waste and goods reduces the heavy traffic in the area and there is an interest from stakeholders to further develop this solution.

Plan for the implementations of solutions

The first set of measures will be combined with other measures along the way. This is one of the advantages in a broad innovation project – the results combined can surpass stand-alone solutions.

The timeline and plan differ for different measures. For example, the goods consolidation for parcel lockers are already under piloting, while the zero emission mobility hub for service providers are under planning, and for the moment we are conducting a series of interviews with potential users which will carry a lot of weight in the further development of the concept.

What is the innovation?

There are several innovative components in the different measures, and in the collaborative process within the project and what we can learn. For example, the integration of different mobility services from different operators in the same app is not only a MaaS-integration, by integrating this in the parking app this can nudge traditional motorists to try other modes of transport for the first time.

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