Since the last update, the Gothenburg Living Lab has been dedicated to addressing challenges and driving clean and smart mobility progress.
Gothenburg inaugurates Mobility Hotel
Sweden’s first Mobility Hotel has opened in Nordstan, one of the country’s largest shopping and business centres. Launched by the City of Gothenburg, the Business Region Göteborg and Nordstan Business Centre as part of MOVE21, the initiative aims to promote quiet, emission-free transport of goods and people in the centre of Gothenburg, making it cleaner and more spacious.
Within this facility, companies provide services to make everyday transport more sustainable and convenient for Gothenburg’s residents. These services include fast, environmentally friendly parcel delivery, flexible vehicle options for tradespeople and easy access to bicycles and light electric vehicles. In particular, two of these companies are working together to operate a joint service shop offering a range of transport options, including bicycles, e-bikes, electric scooters, mopeds and cargo bikes.
Strategically located, the Hotel has direct access to Nordstan’s underground loading road for larger vehicles, enabling efficient reloading for last-mile deliveries by bicycle and light electric vehicles in the centre of Gothenburg. The Mobility Hotel’s services are of great benefit to tenants and other stakeholders in the city centre. Nordstan, adjacent to the central railway station and Brunnsparken, a major public transport hub, sees 70,000 people a day and houses 6,000 workplaces.
A high level of innovation characterises the Mobility Hotel. Combining personal mobility and micro-logistics in one place offers tradesmen and service companies opportunities to use micromobility and bicycles. It also promotes links between mobility companies, the city, retail and real estate. This initiative is expected to create new roles, value chains and business models essential to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable future.
The development of the Mobility Hotel in Nordstan continues to be a priority, supported by two dedicated groups. One group is working with the stakeholders to collaborate on new services and joint communication efforts, while the other group is focusing on long-term strategy with the founders, promoting sustainable transport through incentives and upscaling opportunities.
Integration of shared bike system into parking app
Since the end of December, users of Gothenburg’s parking app have been able to access the city’s shared bike system directly from the app. This integration is an important step in promoting multimodal transport in the city.
Göteborgs Stads Parkering and the City of Gothenburg have been exploring ways to integrate different mobility services into the Parkering Gothenburg mobile app. This effort is based on collaboration with the local innovation ecosystem, work from the Klippan test site working group and preliminary results from MOVE21. The aim is to facilitate a smoother and more convenient transition to sustainable transport. By using the parking app, users can connect directly to the shared bike system and continue their journey with environmentally friendly options. This will make it easier for traditional car drivers to try alternative modes of transport.
The system was developed throughout 2023 and was ready for launch at the end of December. Since then, the integration has attracted significant interest from parking app users. In April 2024, over 8,200 users clicked on the shared bikes link. Notably, around half of these users were not already using the public bike app, indicating a significant number of potential new users.
The potential to scale this project is important, and the next step could be to bring together multiple mobility services in a single app to provide a seamless journey.
Park and bike pilot
During the spring, the Gothenburg Living Lab conducted a Park and Bike pilot project targeting a new group of potential users: the most car-dependent population. This initiative was based on evaluations and results from the Klippan/Jaegerdorff test site, which showed a high use of various sustainable mobility services. However, most users were shifting from already relatively sustainable modes.
To target the most car-dependent users, parking data was analysed to identify frequent central city parkers from the western suburbs who were likely to pass through the test site. These people were offered the opportunity to park at the site and use public bicycles free of charge for one month.
This pilot has now been completed and the concept has been developed further. A second Park and Bike pilot is planned for the Lindholmen test site, with a slightly different offer and focus. These ongoing efforts aim to make sustainable transport options more accessible and attractive to those who rely heavily on cars.