Smarterlab
The SmarterLabs project aims to develop a Smart City Living Lab approach to effectively deal with two major risks to successful, widespread implementation of smart transport technologies.
These two risks concern:
- Unforeseen barriers to large-scale change in socio-technical systems
- Exclusion of social groups not matching the required ‘smart citizen’ profile
This novel, ‘smarter’ approach will be developed, tested and refined by retrospective analysis of urban mobility governance and by action research in Living Lab experiments in the cities of Bellinzona, Brussels, Graz and Maastricht. The main feature of this approach is to anticipate the two major risks by ex-ante diagnosis, and address these explicitly in the design of the Living Lab experiments to enhance the successful uptake of smart urban mobility innovations.
The SmarterLabs consortium is well-positioned for this project by including universities with complementary knowledge, cities committed to implementation of smart mobility concepts, companies developing such innovations, and organizations representing stakeholder interests. All research and city partners have experience with multi-actor Living Lab and participatory approaches, and concrete implementation projects serving as experiments are already identified.
The SmarterLabs’ Advisory and Dissemination Board will organize ‘testing workshops’ in Helsinki, Santander and Istanbul to ensure broad European applicability of the novel approach.