From its inception, MOVE21 has been committed to creating a diverse community of practice to facilitate the dissemination and adoption of innovative urban mobility solutions beyond the partner cities in the project. In this way, the knowledge gained in the project can benefit a larger pool of cities while also elevating cities to a new level by validating project results and innovations.
In addition to the Living Labs and Replicator Cities, the Cascade Cities, which include Brasov, Murcia, Sofia, Stockholm, Thessaloniki and Toulouse, are part of this community of practice. Collaboration between these six selected urban centres and the cities have happened through interviews, technical webinars, peer learning activities and visits, an Urban Node Forum and training sessions.
Over the last few months, the Cascade Cities have actively participated in a curated learning programme tailored to local authorities. This programme, designed to fill knowledge gaps, includes a series of webinars on following topics:
- MOVE21 Urban Logistics Innovations: Cascade Cities gained insights into urban logistics innovations developed by MOVE21 Living Labs and replication ideas adopted by Replicator Cities.
- INNOVATION CAPACITY: A special webinar introduced the concept and framework of innovation capacity and offered practical strategies for overcoming challenges. Examples from MOVE21 Living Lab cities and other projects provided inspiration and best practices.
- MOVE21 Digital and Service Integration: Cascade Cities received a comprehensive overview of digital and service integration developed by MOVE21 Living Labs, complemented by replication ideas from Replicator Cities.
On 27-28 February, the Cascade Cities had the opportunity to learn more about urban mobility innovations in Hamburg, where the all-electric MOIA ride-sharing service, combined transport strategies and EU initiatives such as DECARBOMILE and MODI were discussed. In this context, the Cascade Cities of Brasov, Sofia and Thessaloniki were presented to the rest of the consortium.
It is of great value to see innovative measures successfully tested and implemented in the Living labs in order to replicate them tailored to the needs of our city. Metodi Avramov – Director Strategies, Innovations and International Projects, Sofia Urban Mobility Centre.
On 22-24 April in Oslo, the Cascade Cities participated in the MOVE21 Conference “Planning for Urban and Trans-European Mobility Together” and a following peer learning visit.
During the visit, the cascade cities heard of the successful integration of systems for performing mobility-on-demand services combining passenger and freight transport. A solution for integrating public transport and micro-mobility into seamless end-to-end transport for people, facilitated by a special API developed by Urban Sharing – exploiting the General Bikeshare Specification, was also presented. Jan Tore Pedersen – R&D Manager, MIXMOVE
This engagement formed the basis for the development of the Action Plans for the Cascade Cities, outlining city-specific actions to facilitate knowledge transfer and tailored implementation of the plan.
It is very exciting to see how innovations developed in MOVE21 are viewed by other cities and how their potential is assessed. This gives the project valuable insights on how transferable the results are, and hopefully also entails wider impact and uptake of project results. Tiina Ruohonen – Project Coordinator of MOVE21.
© Rikke Dahl Monsen / Oslo kommune
In the following months, the Action Plans for the Cascade Cities will be prepared to provide details of city-specific plans and prepare the transferability of selected actions. In addition, the Cascade Cities will participate in a peer learning visit to Gothenburg on 14-15 May. This visit is particularly timely as Gothenburg has recently gone live with the integration of public transport, e-scooters and shared bikes into the public transport app. This approach allows users to seamlessly book micro-mobility options with discounts, demonstrating a successful model that could inspire similar initiatives in the Cascade Cities.
The Cascade Cities will continue to participate in selected activities throughout the project, and the consortium’s extensive professional network will be used to further illustrate and discuss MOVE21 solutions and how they can be tailored to different local contexts, which will feed into this outcome.