REAL RIS Training Course
Urban Mobility Labs for Sustainable Cities
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Course Introduction
This course is part of the project, which aims to boost urban mobility innovation in RIS countries by educating, connecting, and actively engaging all sides of the Knowledge Triangle—including cities themselves. Designed for municipal and government professionals, private sector entrepreneurs, policy decision-makers, and urban planning experts, the course provides a focused introduction to innovative approaches and solutions in urban development and sustainable mobility. By the end of the course, participants will be able to define Urban Mobility Labs (ULLs), evaluate their benefits and limitations, and analyze how ULLs address mobility challenges in their own contexts. They will also gain practical skills to design basic ULL concepts tailored to their municipality or region, applying these principles to real-world urban initiatives.
RESILIENT EDUCATED AGILE LEADING
REAL RIS
REGIONAL INNOVATION SHEME
Course Introduction
REAL RIS project and this course are funded by EIT Urban Mobility!
Founded in 2019 as an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, EIT Urban Mobility is committed to accelerating the transition to sustainable mobility. The organisation accelerates the sustainable urban mobility transition by providing established businesses, startups, universities, research institutes and the public sector with access to markets, talent, funding and knowledge.
Course Introduction
Organisations behind the REAL RIS project and this course
REGEA is founded by four regional governments in Croatia, under the framework of the Intelligent Energy Europe programme. Its objectives are to promote, encourage and support the regional sustainable development in the fields of energy, mobility, climate and environmental protection. The Agency participates in numerous projects, while also contributing to sustainable development of its founders.
ODRAZ is an independent NGO in Croatia that brings together professionals from various fields to design and apply sustainable development concepts for the benefit of local communities. Its areas of expertise include implementing non-formal education programs that support sustainable development, organizing thematic workshops, providing consultations, and facilitating expert discussions.
VEFRESH is an innovation agency from Latvia with a clear focus on enhancing urban living. Their primary emphasis is improving mobility systems and supporting municipalities, governments, and startups during their incubation and acceleration phases. VEFRESH actively cultivates an environment conducive to the emergence of cutting-edge, competitive solutions within the urban mobility landscape.
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Course Introduction
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Course Structure
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
Competency Assessment
Introduction to Unit 1
UNIT 1 Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Urban Mobility Living Labs (UMLs) are innovative spaces where cities can experiment with new mobility solutions in real-world settings. By bringing together citizens, government, private sector, and academia, UMLs enable collaborative problem-solving for urban transportation challenges.
This unit defines UMLs, explores their role in accelerating technology, addressing urban challenges, and enhancing collaboration among stakeholders. It also examines the benefits and challenges of UMLs, and compares them to other testing environments to provide a comprehensive understanding of their significance in urban mobility.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Understanding the Basics of Urban Mobility Living Labs (UMLLs)
Purpose
Definition
Urban Mobility Living Labs
Comparison to other similar concepts
Benefits
Challenges
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Defining Urban Mobility Labs
Urban Mobility Labs are dynamic platforms that facilitate the creation and testing of innovative mobility solutions. These labs serve as real-world environments where new transportation technologies and methodologies can be developed and refined. The primary goal of UMLs is to integrate these innovations seamlessly into the urban landscape, enhancing mobility for all residents. By prioritizing user-centered design, Urban Mobility Labs (UMLs) develop solutions that are not only practical and efficient but also closely aligned with the specific needs and preferences of local communities.
Urban Mobility Labs might experiment with new forms of public transportation, such as on-demand shuttles or electric buses, introduce smart traffic management systems that adapt to real-time conditions, or design urban spaces that prioritise pedestrians and cyclists.
The real-world testing environment allows for continuous feedback and iterative improvements, making UMLs a vital component of modern urban planning.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Purpose of Urban Mobility Labs
PURPOSE OF URBAN MOBILITY LABS
Accelerating Technological Integration
Addressing Urban Challenges
Enhancing Collaboration
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
The Role of UMLs in Accelerating Technological Integration
Within Urban Mobility Labs (UMLs), innovative technologies like autonomous vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, and eco-friendly mobility solutions are rapidly prototyped and tested. This agile experimentation helps cities stay at the forefront of technological progress, enabling quick adaptation and integration into urban infrastructure. For example, a UML might pilot autonomous shuttles in a controlled environment, collecting data and user feedback before a city-wide rollout. By addressing potential challenges early, UMLs ensure smoother and more efficient adoption. This proactive, iterative approach reduces risks and speeds the transition to smarter, more sustainable urban mobility systems.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
The Role of UMLs in Addressing Urban Challenges
Urban Mobility Labs also play a crucial role in tackling some of the most pressing urban challenges. As urban areas around the world struggle with rapid population growth, traffic congestion, air pollution, and the demand for efficient, sustainable transportation, UMLs offer a structured framework for exploring and implementing innovative mobility solutions. By providing a real-world environment for testing and experimentation, UMLs enable the development of new transportation technologies and approaches that can help alleviate congestion, reduce emissions, and enhance the overall quality of urban life.
Through these hands-on initiatives, UMLs support cities in transitioning to more sustainable mobility options, such as electric vehicles, shared mobility services, and integrated public transportation systems. By fostering continuous innovation and practical solutions, UMLs play a vital role in shaping the future of urban mobility and creating healthier, more livable cities.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
The Role of UMLs in Enhancing Collaboration
Urban Mobility Labs excel at fostering collaboration among a wide range of stakeholders. By bringing together government agencies, private enterprises, academic institutions, and citizen groups, these labs create a dynamic environment where diverse perspectives and expertise are actively integrated into the development process. This inclusive, multilateral approach is essential for crafting robust and widely accepted mobility solutions, as it ensures that the needs and insights of all key players are considered. Through such collaboration, UMLs help build consensus, drive innovation, and increase the likelihood of successful implementation in real-world urban settings.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Benefits of Operating Urban Mobility Labs
Operating Urban Mobility Labs provide several key benefits that drive innovation, collaboration, sustainability, and informed decision-making in urban mobility.
Complex Stakeholder Synergy and Multilateral Collaboration
Catalyzed Technological Advancements and Rapid Prototyping
Accelerated Implementation of Holistic Sustainability Solutions
Data-Driven Decision Making and Policy Development
UMLs promote the adoption of comprehensive sustainability initiatives, making it easier to integrate new solutions into the urban ecosystem. This accelerates progress toward more resilient and sustainable cities.
UMLs facilitate the creation of strong networks among government, private sector, academia, and citizens. This synergy fosters collaboration and ensures that mobility solutions are both robust and widely accepted.
Functioning as innovation hubs, UMLs allow for the rapid development and integration of advanced mobility technologies. This capability helps cities stay adaptable and responsive to emerging technological trends.
By generating valuable real-world data, UMLs support informed decision-making and policy development. This enables cities to craft precise, effective urban mobility policies that address real challenges.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Challenges of Operating Urban Mobility Labs
Urban Mobility Labs also face a range of operational and strategic challenges related to funding, stakeholder coordination, regulation, citizen engagement, and technology integration. In the following slides, each of these challenges will be explored in depth.
Overcoming Resistance to Change
Securing Long-Term Funding and Financial Sustainability
CHALLENGES OF OPERATING UMLs
Managing Technological and Infrastructure Integration
Achieving Effective Stakeholder Coordination and Engagement
Navigating Regulatory and Policy Barriers
Facilitating Knowledge Transfer and Scaling Innovations
Ensuring Active Citizen Participation and Acceptance
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 1 Securing Long-Term Funding and Financial Sustainability
One of the primary challenges facing Urban Mobility Labs is achieving financial sustainability through secure, long-term funding. Many labs depend on short-term, project-based grants, which are often unpredictable and limited in scope. This lack of stable funding makes it difficult to maintain essential infrastructure, retain skilled personnel, and support ongoing activities. As a result, the ability of UMLs to achieve long-term objectives and scale their impact is significantly constrained without reliable financial support.
To overcome this challenge, Urban Mobility Labs often establish diverse and resilient funding streams. This includes combining government grants, private sector investments, and public-private partnerships to support ongoing operations and future growth. Such an approach helps ensure the financial stability needed to extend promising pilot projects and maintain long-term impact.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 2 Achieving Effective Stakeholder Coordination and Engagement
Coordinating a diverse array of stakeholders—including government agencies, private companies, academic institutions, and citizens—presents significant complexity. Differences in interests, goals, and priorities among these groups can create barriers to effective collaboration, often hindering the co-creation process and slowing the implementation of innovative solutions. Successfully navigating these dynamics is essential for achieving meaningful and lasting progress in urban mobility initiatives.
Addressing this challenge involves establishing clear communication channels, defining roles and responsibilities from the outset, and implementing structured mechanisms for conflict resolution. Fostering an inclusive and collaborative environment helps align stakeholder interests and maintains commitment throughout the project, reducing delays and enhancing the effectiveness of co-created solutions.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 3 Navigating Regulatory and Policy Barriers
Urban mobility innovations frequently encounter regulatory and policy barriers that can delay or even obstruct their implementation. Variations in regulations across different regions, coupled with the slow pace of policy adaptation, often create uncertainty and hinder the timely deployment of new technologies and practices. These challenges can limit the scalability and impact of innovative mobility solutions, making it essential to navigate the regulatory landscape strategically.
Proactive engagement with policymakers and advocacy for adaptive regulatory frameworks play a crucial role in navigating regulatory barriers. Demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of new mobility solutions through rigorous testing and data collection helps build trust among regulators, enabling smoother implementation and broader adoption of innovative urban mobility technologies.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 4 Ensuring Active Citizen Participation and Acceptance
Engaging citizens and securing their active participation in the co-creation process often presents significant challenges. When citizen involvement is limited, mobility solutions may fail to reflect the actual needs and preferences of users, resulting in lower public acceptance and diminished effectiveness of implemented innovations. Ensuring meaningful engagement is crucial for developing solutions that are both relevant and widely supported within the community.
Engaging citizens through targeted outreach, public consultations, and effective feedback mechanisms ensures their involvement in decision-making processes. This inclusive approach fosters a sense of ownership among community members, leading to greater public acceptance and improved outcomes for new mobility solutions.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 5 Facilitating Knowledge Transfer and Scaling Innovations
Transferring knowledge and scaling successful innovations from one urban context to another is often a complex process. Variations in local conditions, cultural norms, and existing infrastructure can all influence how well solutions developed within UMLs translate to different settings. As a result, adapting and replicating these innovations across diverse urban environments demands careful assessment of local needs and constraints to ensure their effectiveness and relevance.
An effective approach to overcoming this challenge involves documenting effective practices, sharing case studies, and developing adaptable frameworks that can be customized for different urban contexts. Facilitating knowledge exchange and collaboration among cities enables UMLs to successfully scale innovations and maximize their impact across diverse environments.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 6 Managing Technological and Infrastructure Integration
Integrating new technologies with existing urban infrastructure often presents complex technical and logistical hurdles. Achieving compatibility and ensuring seamless operation between innovative and established systems are essential for the effective implementation and long-term success of mobility solutions. Without careful planning and coordination, these integration efforts can face delays, increased costs, or operational disruptions, underscoring the importance of a strategic approach to system interoperability.
Effective integration relies on thorough technical assessments, detailed planning, and close collaboration with infrastructure providers and technology vendors. Careful coordination ensures new systems are compatible with existing infrastructure, enabling the smooth and successful implementation of innovative mobility solutions.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 7 Overcoming Resistance to Change
Resistance to change among institutional stakeholders and the public can significantly hinder the adoption of new mobility solutions. Overcoming deeply rooted behaviors, established practices, and institutional inertia is crucial for ensuring the successful implementation and long-term acceptance of innovative approaches in urban mobility. Building trust, demonstrating clear benefits, and fostering a culture of openness to innovation are all important factors in facilitating this transition.
Overcoming resistance to change involves clear and effective communication, highlighting the tangible benefits of new mobility solutions, and actively involving stakeholders throughout the transition process. Addressing concerns and promoting a culture of innovation and adaptability help foster acceptance, paving the way for successful adoption of new mobility initiatives.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Comparison toOther Testing Environments
Scope and scale
TEST BEDS
Smaller, controlled environments.
Industry and academic partners for precise testing.
Provide necessary permissions, regulatory oversight, and sometimes funding.
Ensure smooth transition to real-world applications.
PILOT TERRITORIES
Intermediate in scale, larger than test-beds more focused than Living Labs.
Local communities and municipal authorities.
Facilitate transition from pilot to wider implementation.
Select testing areas, provide infrastructure, funding, and monitor impacts.
LIVING LABS
Encompass entire urban areas or multiple districts.
Government, industry, academia, citizens.
Provide access to public spaces, data, resources, and facilitate user engagement.
Align projects with local needs and priorities.
Impact
Role of municipalities
Stakeholder engagement
Before new technologies or services can be widely implemented, they must first prove their effectiveness, safety, and acceptance. To achieve this, innovators and policymakers use different types of experimental environments where innovations can be developed, tested, and refined in controlled or real-world conditions. Three key types of experimental spaces are widely used:
Testbeds, Living Labs and Pilot Territories.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Unit in Review
As outlined so far, UMLs drive innovation and foster collaboration among diverse stakeholders. They tackle mobility challenges through real-world experimentation and stakeholder engagement, resulting in practical and tested solutions. Their use of advanced technologies and data-driven approaches supports the development of efficient, sustainable, and inclusive urban mobility systems.
Continued collaboration between government, industry, academia, and citizens amplifies the effectiveness of UMLs. As cities grow and mobility demands evolve, UMLs are poised to become even more essential in shaping resilient and future-oriented urban environments.
We compared living labs to testbeds and pilot territories, highlighting their unique strengths and roles in developing and validating new technologies and services.
Introduction to Unit 2
UNIT 2 Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
This unit moves from theory to practice by showcasing best-practice examples of urban mobility living labs in action. The Altona Mobility Lab in Hamburg shows how urban redevelopment can foster innovative transport solutions, while Vienna’s Aspern Seestadt Mobility Lab demonstrates the potential power of community-driven, sustainable mobility and integrated energy solutions. The Living Labs Knowledge Base Platform supports these efforts by sharing practical resources and best practices, helping cities across Europe replicate and scale successful models. Together, these examples highlight the real-world impact of mobility living labs.
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
ALTONA MOBILITY LAB
BEST PRACTICE
ASPERN SEESTADT MOBILITY LAB
OTHER EXAMPLES
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
HAMBURG, GERMANY
Altona Mobility Lab
Altona is a borough in the City of Hamburg, situated west of the inner city along the River Elbe. The specific site chosen for the Altona mobility lab is the current location of the large “Holsten-Brauerei” brewery, adjacent to “Mitte Altona.” This site is about 3 km from the river and approximately 1.5 km from Altona-Altstadt, an attractive area known for its housing and shopping opportunities. The neighborhoods of Altona-Altstadt and Ottensen are separated by a main railway line to the west and major transit roads on the other side. However, with Deutsche Bahn AG’s decision to relocate the main inter-city train station further north, significant land has become available for redevelopment.
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
HAMBURG, GERMANY
Mitte Altona
The “Mitte Altona” project aims to transform this brownfield area of disused rail infrastructure into a vibrant new neighborhood, enhancing integration, mobility, and connectivity. The development will provide space for approximately 3,500 new housing units and a district school. Additionally, the Holsten-Brauerei brewery will relocate to a new site in the south (the Hausbruch industrial estate), freeing up even more land for urban redevelopment. This presents an opportunity to focus on innovative mobility solutions that address the needs of both current and future residents, in close coordination with the Mitte Altona project.
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
HAMBURG, GERMANY
Altona Mobility Lab: Overview
Purpose and Objectives
Operators and Supporters
The purpose of the Altona Mobility Lab is to collaboratively address local transport and mobility challenges by co-designing innovative solutions, testing these ideas in real-world settings, and scaling up successful initiatives. To achieve this, the Altona Mobility Lab will address the following challenges:
- Conflicts over space among different modes of transport
- Gaps in infrastructure for bicycle traffic
- Insufficient accessibility for people with disabilities
- District of Altona
- HafenCity University (HCU)
Stakeholders
- Industry and Business
- Academia and Research Institutions
- Government and Public Administration
- General Public and Community Members
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Aspern Seestadt Mobility Lab
Aspern Seestadt is a new urban center in north-eastern Vienna set for completion in 2028. As an Urban Lab within the Smart City Wien initiative, Seestadt serves as a city-within-a-city and an ideal testing ground for innovative urban development, while always keeping residents at the heart of its approach. To address urban challenges and ensure a sustainable, livable future, Vienna has launched the comprehensive Smart City Wien initiative. This cross-sector strategy brings together solutions in infrastructure, energy, mobility, and urban development, supporting the city’s reputation for quality of life, innovation, and robust infrastructure while meeting the evolving needs of its residents.
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Aspern Seestadt Mobility Lab
Aspern Smart City Research
Key projects emphasize innovation and community input: The initiative also promotes active mobility by encouraging cycling, walking, and other eco-friendly transportation options. By implementing Mobility-as-a-Service, it creates customized, integrated solutions that make sustainable travel easier for everyone. These efforts advance the Smart City Wien Framework Strategy by creating sustainable mobility solutions, engaging local residents in development and testing, reducing CO₂ emissions, and enhancing urban mobility infrastructure.
Aspern Seestadt serves as both a showcase project and a living lab for pioneering urban energy solutions, providing an ideal environment to explore the future of urban energy supply. Central to these efforts is Aspern Smart City Research (ASCR), a consortium founded in 2013 by Siemens, Vienna’s infrastructure and utilities operators, the Vienna Business Agency, and Wien 3420 AG development agency. Their shared goal is to demonstrate how cities of the future can operate in a climate-friendly and sustainable manner.
+ Self-Driving Bus
+ Walk and Feel
+ ASCR's Work
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Aspern Seestadt Mobility Lab: Overview
Purpose and Objectives
Operators and Supporters
- To develop and test environment-friendly mobility solutions in collaboration with local residents, businesses, and municipal administration.
- To engage residents as local experts in the co-development, testing, and implementation of innovative mobility solutions.
- To focus on active mobility (cycling, walking), Mobility-as-a-Service (e.g., car sharing), and first/last mile logistics in order to reduce CO₂ emissions.
- To create transferable mobility solutions for other districts and to foster international network exchanges.
- Technische Universitat Wien
- Federal Ministry of Republic of Austria
Stakeholders
- Local residents
- Urban Innovation Vienna
- Neighbourhood Management Office Aspern Seestadt
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
Living Labs Knowledge Base Platform
The EIT Urban Mobility Knowledge Base Platform is an online resource dedicated to supporting the development and operation of mobility living labs across Europe. The platform offers regularly updated information and practical materials related to living labs and serves as a central hub for cities, businesses, and researchers interested in piloting and scaling innovative, user-centered mobility solutions in real-world environments. Available resources include:
Interactive Mapping
Living Labs Report
Toolbox
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
Unit in Review
Altona Mobility Lab stands out for engaging residents in co-creating and testing sustainable mobility solutions. Notable achievements include the Walk and Feel project, which uses sensor data to improve urban planning, and the Self-Driving Bus, developed with ongoing community feedback—making Altona a model for participatory, data-driven mobility.
On the other hand, Aspern Seestadt is a leading living lab for urban energy and mobility, where the Aspern Smart City Research consortium has equipped buildings to both consume and generate energy. Over 100 households use a Smart Home Control App, enabling real-time research and optimization of smart, energy-efficient living.
The EIT Urban Mobility Knowledge Base Platform furthers these efforts by offering resources, interactive mapping, and best practices to help scale living labs and experimental environments across Europe.
Introduction to Unit 3
UNIT 3 Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
Unit 3 introduces a practical framework for establishing urban mobility living labs through eight systematically connected steps, guiding practitioners from initial planning to the scaling of sustainable innovations . Each of the eight steps builds upon the last to ensure inclusive stakeholder involvement, robust governance, effective resource allocation, and continuous learning. By following this structured approach, cities and researchers can co-create user-driven mobility solutions in real-world settings, assess their impact, and replicate successful models across different urban contexts.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
The 8-Step Process for Creating a Living Lab
Living Labs represent a systematic approach to innovation that places users at the center of development processes in real-life settings. Based on methodologies developed by organizations like the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), the following eight interconnected steps provide a comprehensive framework for establishing and maintaining successful Living Labs:
Planning
Organising
Communicating
Reflecting
Engaging
Identifying
Validating
Scaling
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 1: Planning
The journey begins with thorough planning, where you define the Living Lab's purpose, identify target users and stakeholders, and create a detailed timeline of activities. This foundational step addresses several key challenges, including achieving inclusivity by ensuring diverse representation and actively engaging citizens throughout the innovation process. Planning also builds resilience against unpredictable events by establishing flexible frameworks that can adapt to changing circumstances. A well-structured plan creates the necessary foundation for all subsequent steps, allowing for systematic progression while maintaining adaptability in the face of emerging challenges.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 2: Engaging
With your plan in place, the next step focuses on defining effective strategies for engaging users and stakeholders. This involves creating participatory approaches that foster meaningful involvement from diverse groups, ensuring inclusivity across different backgrounds, abilities, and perspectives. Effective engagement strategies help secure sponsorship by demonstrating that stakeholder input is taken into account to improve innovation outcomes, reduce risks, and increase the likelihood of successful implementation. By establishing clear engagement protocols early in the process, you encourage continuous participation, strengthen user ownership, and ensure that innovations reflect stakeholder preferences.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 3: Organising
Organisation provides the structural framework necessary for your Living Lab's success through the establishment of a steering committee. This governance body brings together representatives from key stakeholder groups to guide the Living Lab's activities and decision-making processes. The committee plays a crucial role in aligning diverse stakeholder values within the Living Lab, ensuring that their perspectives and priorities are integrated into the innovation process. Additionally, it helps establish an effective governance structure that balances flexibility with accountability, creating clear roles, responsibilities, and decision-making protocols that support the Living Lab's operations.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 4: Identifying
This step involves identifying and securing the physical infrastructure, equipment, and resources needed for your Living Lab's experimental phase. It also includes establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) that will measure success and guide evaluation efforts. By clearly articulating resource requirements and expected outcomes, this step helps obtain management sponsorship through demonstrating the tangible value and return on investment that the Living Lab will deliver. Careful consideration of maintenance needs and long-term resource requirements during this phase helps ensure the Living Lab's sustainability beyond initial implementation.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 5: Communicating
Developing a comprehensive communication strategy and associated tools is essential for sharing knowledge within and beyond the Living Lab. Effective communication facilitates information exchange among stakeholders, promotes transparency, and builds trust in the Living Lab process. This step creates channels for disseminating findings, sharing updates, and maintaining engagement throughout the Living Lab's lifecycle. A well-designed communication strategy also helps manage expectations, celebrate successes, and address challenges openly, contributing to a positive and productive Living Lab environment.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 6: Validating
Validation involves checking the application of Living Lab principles throughout your implementation process. This comprehensive assessment addresses all potential challenges, from inclusivity and stakeholder engagement to governance structures and knowledge transfer. It ensures that the Living Lab remains resilient in the face of unpredictable events while maintaining alignment with stakeholder values. Validation also examines whether management sponsorship is being effectively leveraged and if the Living Lab is successfully transferring knowledge within and beyond its boundaries. Additionally, this step begins the process of assessing impact and considering sustainability, laying groundwork for the Living Lab's long-term success and evolution.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 7: Reflecting
Reflection involves identifying and sharing lessons learned from your Living Lab activities, both internally and with other Living Labs. This critical step facilitates knowledge transfer by documenting experiences, insights, and best practices that can benefit the broader Living Lab community. It contributes to impact assessment by examining outcomes against objectives and identifying both successes and areas for improvement. Reflection also supports sustainability by generating insights that can inform future iterations and adaptations of the Living Lab approach, ensuring that it continues to evolve and improve over time.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 8: Scaling
The final step explores possibilities for transferring, scaling, and replicating your Living Lab's results and processes. This future-oriented phase emphasizes adapting proven solutions for different environments or larger deployments to maximize their reach and effectiveness. It supports knowledge transfer by making methodologies and processes accessible and usable by other practitioners. Scaling also addresses sustainability by identifying pathways for continuing and expanding the Living Lab's work, ensuring that valuable innovations achieve their full potential for creating positive change.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
Unit in Review
By following the eight-step process (Planning, Engaging, Organizing, Identifying, Communicating, Validating, Reflecting, and Scaling) practitioners can systematically develop and maintain urban mobility living labs that place users at the center of real-world innovation processes. This structured approach ensures inclusive stakeholder participation, robust governance, and resource alignment while fostering continuous learning and knowledge transfer both within and beyond the living lab. Ultimately, applying these connected steps enables cities and innovators to co-create, validate, and expand sustainable mobility solutions that are evidence-based, adaptable, and capable of driving meaningful urban transformation.
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COURSE: Urban Mobility Labs for Sustainable Cities
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You will receive a certificate of completion jointly awarded by the Consortium partners and EIT Urban Mobility via your email address.
EIT Urban Mobility
the Consortium partners
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Sources
This course was created based on the following list of sources:
- Alonso Raposo, M., Mourtzouchou, A., Garus, A., Brinkhoff-Button, N., Kert, K., & Ciuffo, B. (2021). JRC Future Mobility Solutions Living Lab (FMS-Lab): Conceptual framework, state of play and way forward. Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2760/964269
- Breitfuss, B. (2025). How to maintain an urban Mobility Lab in the long term? The role of the organisational structure in the Labs’ Business Model. Der öffentliche Sektor – The Public Sector, 51(1), 10–13. https://oes.tuwien.ac.at/article/705/galley/735/view/
- Breitfuss, G., Dörrzapf, L., & Heintel, M. (2018, April). Innovation milieus for mobility – Analysis of innovation lab approaches for the establishment of Urban Mobility Labs in Austria. In Proceedings of the REAL CORP 2018 – Expanding Cities – Diminishing Space. Are “Smart Cities” the Solution or Part of the Problem? (pp. 613–622). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361588142
- EIT Urban Mobility. (2021). EIT Urban Mobility Knowledge base of innovative solutions in urban mobility and living labs: Final report. EIT Urban Mobility. https://www.eiturbanmobility.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/EITUrbanMobility_Living_labs_report_update_July2021-1.pdf
- Florez Ayala, D. H., Alberton, A., & Ersoy, A. (2022). Urban living labs: Pathways of sustainability transitions towards innovative city systems from a circular economy perspective. Sustainability, 14(16), 9831. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14169831
- Franta, L., Dangschat, J. S., & Haufe, N. (2018). D2.2 Mobility Labs in Practice: Implementing Neighbourhood Mobility Labs (Version 1.1). Rupprecht Consult. https://www.rupprecht-consult.eu/fileadmin/migratedRupprechtAssets/Documents/SUN_D2.2_Mobility_Labs_in_Practice_final.pdf
- Interreg Europe ACSELL. (2023). Establishing a sustainable living lab. Interreg Europe. https://projects2014-2020.interregeurope.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/tx_tevprojects/library/file_1689670363.pdf
- Lindov, O., Omerhodžić, A., Mujić, A., & Gadžo, E. (2022). Sustainable urban mobility living lab: Case study Sarajevo. Transportation Research Procedia, 64, 25–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2022.09.004
- Mück, M., Helf, C., & Lindenau, M. (2019). Urban living labs fostering sustainable mobility planning in Munich. Transportation Research Procedia, 41, 741–744. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2019.09.122
- Rosemberg, C., Potau, X., Leistner, S., Dijkstal, F., Vinnik, A., Tiriduzzi, C., Dave, A., & Blind, K. (2020). Regulatory sandboxes and innovation testbeds: A look at international experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. https://doi.org/10.18235/0002526
- Voytenko, Y., McCormick, K., Evans, J., & Schliwa, G. (2016). Urban living labs for sustainability and low carbon cities in Europe: Towards a research agenda. Journal of Cleaner Production, 123, 45–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.053
Pilot territories refer to designated areas where a new concepts, policies, or solutions are tested on a smaller scale before being implemented more broadly.
Living Labs are dynamic platforms that facilitate the creation and testing of innovative mobility solutions. These labs serve as real-world environments.
POPULATIONHamburg: 1,763,000 inhabitants (2015)District of Altona: 251,563 inhabitants (2010)
LAND AREA Hamburg: 755,2 km² District of Altona: 77.4 km²
Testbed is a controlled environment where new technologies or systems are tested under monitored conditions.
Area of planning zone:240 ha (approx. 340 football pitches) Net building land: 107 ha
Green spaces: 54 ha Development horizon:
20 years (until approx. 2030) Vision: 11,500 dwelling units > 25,000 inhabitants by 2030
ASCR's Work
ASCR’s research centers on three Seestadt buildings—a housing complex, student residence, and school campus—equipped with photovoltaic panels, solar thermal systems, hybrid collectors, heat pumps, and energy storage. These buildings both consume and generate energy, acting as decentralized power plants. A key part of the research involves 111 participating households, who provide data on energy use and room climate control. With a Smart Home Control App, residents can manage heating, ventilation, and appliances via smartphone or tablet, helping to optimize smart, energy-efficient living.
Urban Mobility Labs
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Transcript
REAL RIS Training Course
Urban Mobility Labs for Sustainable Cities
Let's go!
Course Introduction
This course is part of the project, which aims to boost urban mobility innovation in RIS countries by educating, connecting, and actively engaging all sides of the Knowledge Triangle—including cities themselves. Designed for municipal and government professionals, private sector entrepreneurs, policy decision-makers, and urban planning experts, the course provides a focused introduction to innovative approaches and solutions in urban development and sustainable mobility. By the end of the course, participants will be able to define Urban Mobility Labs (ULLs), evaluate their benefits and limitations, and analyze how ULLs address mobility challenges in their own contexts. They will also gain practical skills to design basic ULL concepts tailored to their municipality or region, applying these principles to real-world urban initiatives.
RESILIENT EDUCATED AGILE LEADING
REAL RIS
REGIONAL INNOVATION SHEME
Course Introduction
REAL RIS project and this course are funded by EIT Urban Mobility!
Founded in 2019 as an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, EIT Urban Mobility is committed to accelerating the transition to sustainable mobility. The organisation accelerates the sustainable urban mobility transition by providing established businesses, startups, universities, research institutes and the public sector with access to markets, talent, funding and knowledge.
Course Introduction
Organisations behind the REAL RIS project and this course
REGEA is founded by four regional governments in Croatia, under the framework of the Intelligent Energy Europe programme. Its objectives are to promote, encourage and support the regional sustainable development in the fields of energy, mobility, climate and environmental protection. The Agency participates in numerous projects, while also contributing to sustainable development of its founders.
ODRAZ is an independent NGO in Croatia that brings together professionals from various fields to design and apply sustainable development concepts for the benefit of local communities. Its areas of expertise include implementing non-formal education programs that support sustainable development, organizing thematic workshops, providing consultations, and facilitating expert discussions.
VEFRESH is an innovation agency from Latvia with a clear focus on enhancing urban living. Their primary emphasis is improving mobility systems and supporting municipalities, governments, and startups during their incubation and acceleration phases. VEFRESH actively cultivates an environment conducive to the emergence of cutting-edge, competitive solutions within the urban mobility landscape.
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Course Introduction
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we want to introduce you to some interactive elements you will use in this course. At the top left of your screen, you can find three buttons:The home button takes you to Course Structure. The back arrow takes you to the page you were previously on.The forward arrow takes you to the next page.
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Sources
Course Structure
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
Competency Assessment
Introduction to Unit 1
UNIT 1 Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Urban Mobility Living Labs (UMLs) are innovative spaces where cities can experiment with new mobility solutions in real-world settings. By bringing together citizens, government, private sector, and academia, UMLs enable collaborative problem-solving for urban transportation challenges. This unit defines UMLs, explores their role in accelerating technology, addressing urban challenges, and enhancing collaboration among stakeholders. It also examines the benefits and challenges of UMLs, and compares them to other testing environments to provide a comprehensive understanding of their significance in urban mobility.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Understanding the Basics of Urban Mobility Living Labs (UMLLs)
Purpose
Definition
Urban Mobility Living Labs
Comparison to other similar concepts
Benefits
Challenges
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Defining Urban Mobility Labs
Urban Mobility Labs are dynamic platforms that facilitate the creation and testing of innovative mobility solutions. These labs serve as real-world environments where new transportation technologies and methodologies can be developed and refined. The primary goal of UMLs is to integrate these innovations seamlessly into the urban landscape, enhancing mobility for all residents. By prioritizing user-centered design, Urban Mobility Labs (UMLs) develop solutions that are not only practical and efficient but also closely aligned with the specific needs and preferences of local communities.
Urban Mobility Labs might experiment with new forms of public transportation, such as on-demand shuttles or electric buses, introduce smart traffic management systems that adapt to real-time conditions, or design urban spaces that prioritise pedestrians and cyclists.
The real-world testing environment allows for continuous feedback and iterative improvements, making UMLs a vital component of modern urban planning.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Purpose of Urban Mobility Labs
PURPOSE OF URBAN MOBILITY LABS
Accelerating Technological Integration
Addressing Urban Challenges
Enhancing Collaboration
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
The Role of UMLs in Accelerating Technological Integration
Within Urban Mobility Labs (UMLs), innovative technologies like autonomous vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, and eco-friendly mobility solutions are rapidly prototyped and tested. This agile experimentation helps cities stay at the forefront of technological progress, enabling quick adaptation and integration into urban infrastructure. For example, a UML might pilot autonomous shuttles in a controlled environment, collecting data and user feedback before a city-wide rollout. By addressing potential challenges early, UMLs ensure smoother and more efficient adoption. This proactive, iterative approach reduces risks and speeds the transition to smarter, more sustainable urban mobility systems.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
The Role of UMLs in Addressing Urban Challenges
Urban Mobility Labs also play a crucial role in tackling some of the most pressing urban challenges. As urban areas around the world struggle with rapid population growth, traffic congestion, air pollution, and the demand for efficient, sustainable transportation, UMLs offer a structured framework for exploring and implementing innovative mobility solutions. By providing a real-world environment for testing and experimentation, UMLs enable the development of new transportation technologies and approaches that can help alleviate congestion, reduce emissions, and enhance the overall quality of urban life.
Through these hands-on initiatives, UMLs support cities in transitioning to more sustainable mobility options, such as electric vehicles, shared mobility services, and integrated public transportation systems. By fostering continuous innovation and practical solutions, UMLs play a vital role in shaping the future of urban mobility and creating healthier, more livable cities.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
The Role of UMLs in Enhancing Collaboration
Urban Mobility Labs excel at fostering collaboration among a wide range of stakeholders. By bringing together government agencies, private enterprises, academic institutions, and citizen groups, these labs create a dynamic environment where diverse perspectives and expertise are actively integrated into the development process. This inclusive, multilateral approach is essential for crafting robust and widely accepted mobility solutions, as it ensures that the needs and insights of all key players are considered. Through such collaboration, UMLs help build consensus, drive innovation, and increase the likelihood of successful implementation in real-world urban settings.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Benefits of Operating Urban Mobility Labs
Operating Urban Mobility Labs provide several key benefits that drive innovation, collaboration, sustainability, and informed decision-making in urban mobility.
Complex Stakeholder Synergy and Multilateral Collaboration
Catalyzed Technological Advancements and Rapid Prototyping
Accelerated Implementation of Holistic Sustainability Solutions
Data-Driven Decision Making and Policy Development
UMLs promote the adoption of comprehensive sustainability initiatives, making it easier to integrate new solutions into the urban ecosystem. This accelerates progress toward more resilient and sustainable cities.
UMLs facilitate the creation of strong networks among government, private sector, academia, and citizens. This synergy fosters collaboration and ensures that mobility solutions are both robust and widely accepted.
Functioning as innovation hubs, UMLs allow for the rapid development and integration of advanced mobility technologies. This capability helps cities stay adaptable and responsive to emerging technological trends.
By generating valuable real-world data, UMLs support informed decision-making and policy development. This enables cities to craft precise, effective urban mobility policies that address real challenges.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Challenges of Operating Urban Mobility Labs
Urban Mobility Labs also face a range of operational and strategic challenges related to funding, stakeholder coordination, regulation, citizen engagement, and technology integration. In the following slides, each of these challenges will be explored in depth.
Overcoming Resistance to Change
Securing Long-Term Funding and Financial Sustainability
CHALLENGES OF OPERATING UMLs
Managing Technological and Infrastructure Integration
Achieving Effective Stakeholder Coordination and Engagement
Navigating Regulatory and Policy Barriers
Facilitating Knowledge Transfer and Scaling Innovations
Ensuring Active Citizen Participation and Acceptance
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 1 Securing Long-Term Funding and Financial Sustainability
One of the primary challenges facing Urban Mobility Labs is achieving financial sustainability through secure, long-term funding. Many labs depend on short-term, project-based grants, which are often unpredictable and limited in scope. This lack of stable funding makes it difficult to maintain essential infrastructure, retain skilled personnel, and support ongoing activities. As a result, the ability of UMLs to achieve long-term objectives and scale their impact is significantly constrained without reliable financial support.
To overcome this challenge, Urban Mobility Labs often establish diverse and resilient funding streams. This includes combining government grants, private sector investments, and public-private partnerships to support ongoing operations and future growth. Such an approach helps ensure the financial stability needed to extend promising pilot projects and maintain long-term impact.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 2 Achieving Effective Stakeholder Coordination and Engagement
Coordinating a diverse array of stakeholders—including government agencies, private companies, academic institutions, and citizens—presents significant complexity. Differences in interests, goals, and priorities among these groups can create barriers to effective collaboration, often hindering the co-creation process and slowing the implementation of innovative solutions. Successfully navigating these dynamics is essential for achieving meaningful and lasting progress in urban mobility initiatives.
Addressing this challenge involves establishing clear communication channels, defining roles and responsibilities from the outset, and implementing structured mechanisms for conflict resolution. Fostering an inclusive and collaborative environment helps align stakeholder interests and maintains commitment throughout the project, reducing delays and enhancing the effectiveness of co-created solutions.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 3 Navigating Regulatory and Policy Barriers
Urban mobility innovations frequently encounter regulatory and policy barriers that can delay or even obstruct their implementation. Variations in regulations across different regions, coupled with the slow pace of policy adaptation, often create uncertainty and hinder the timely deployment of new technologies and practices. These challenges can limit the scalability and impact of innovative mobility solutions, making it essential to navigate the regulatory landscape strategically.
Proactive engagement with policymakers and advocacy for adaptive regulatory frameworks play a crucial role in navigating regulatory barriers. Demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of new mobility solutions through rigorous testing and data collection helps build trust among regulators, enabling smoother implementation and broader adoption of innovative urban mobility technologies.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 4 Ensuring Active Citizen Participation and Acceptance
Engaging citizens and securing their active participation in the co-creation process often presents significant challenges. When citizen involvement is limited, mobility solutions may fail to reflect the actual needs and preferences of users, resulting in lower public acceptance and diminished effectiveness of implemented innovations. Ensuring meaningful engagement is crucial for developing solutions that are both relevant and widely supported within the community.
Engaging citizens through targeted outreach, public consultations, and effective feedback mechanisms ensures their involvement in decision-making processes. This inclusive approach fosters a sense of ownership among community members, leading to greater public acceptance and improved outcomes for new mobility solutions.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 5 Facilitating Knowledge Transfer and Scaling Innovations
Transferring knowledge and scaling successful innovations from one urban context to another is often a complex process. Variations in local conditions, cultural norms, and existing infrastructure can all influence how well solutions developed within UMLs translate to different settings. As a result, adapting and replicating these innovations across diverse urban environments demands careful assessment of local needs and constraints to ensure their effectiveness and relevance.
An effective approach to overcoming this challenge involves documenting effective practices, sharing case studies, and developing adaptable frameworks that can be customized for different urban contexts. Facilitating knowledge exchange and collaboration among cities enables UMLs to successfully scale innovations and maximize their impact across diverse environments.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 6 Managing Technological and Infrastructure Integration
Integrating new technologies with existing urban infrastructure often presents complex technical and logistical hurdles. Achieving compatibility and ensuring seamless operation between innovative and established systems are essential for the effective implementation and long-term success of mobility solutions. Without careful planning and coordination, these integration efforts can face delays, increased costs, or operational disruptions, underscoring the importance of a strategic approach to system interoperability.
Effective integration relies on thorough technical assessments, detailed planning, and close collaboration with infrastructure providers and technology vendors. Careful coordination ensures new systems are compatible with existing infrastructure, enabling the smooth and successful implementation of innovative mobility solutions.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
CHALLENGE 7 Overcoming Resistance to Change
Resistance to change among institutional stakeholders and the public can significantly hinder the adoption of new mobility solutions. Overcoming deeply rooted behaviors, established practices, and institutional inertia is crucial for ensuring the successful implementation and long-term acceptance of innovative approaches in urban mobility. Building trust, demonstrating clear benefits, and fostering a culture of openness to innovation are all important factors in facilitating this transition.
Overcoming resistance to change involves clear and effective communication, highlighting the tangible benefits of new mobility solutions, and actively involving stakeholders throughout the transition process. Addressing concerns and promoting a culture of innovation and adaptability help foster acceptance, paving the way for successful adoption of new mobility initiatives.
+ Best practice
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Comparison toOther Testing Environments
Scope and scale
TEST BEDS
Smaller, controlled environments.
Industry and academic partners for precise testing.
Provide necessary permissions, regulatory oversight, and sometimes funding.
Ensure smooth transition to real-world applications.
PILOT TERRITORIES
Intermediate in scale, larger than test-beds more focused than Living Labs.
Local communities and municipal authorities.
Facilitate transition from pilot to wider implementation.
Select testing areas, provide infrastructure, funding, and monitor impacts.
LIVING LABS
Encompass entire urban areas or multiple districts.
Government, industry, academia, citizens.
Provide access to public spaces, data, resources, and facilitate user engagement.
Align projects with local needs and priorities.
Impact
Role of municipalities
Stakeholder engagement
Before new technologies or services can be widely implemented, they must first prove their effectiveness, safety, and acceptance. To achieve this, innovators and policymakers use different types of experimental environments where innovations can be developed, tested, and refined in controlled or real-world conditions. Three key types of experimental spaces are widely used: Testbeds, Living Labs and Pilot Territories.
Unit 1/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Foundations and Challenges
Unit in Review
As outlined so far, UMLs drive innovation and foster collaboration among diverse stakeholders. They tackle mobility challenges through real-world experimentation and stakeholder engagement, resulting in practical and tested solutions. Their use of advanced technologies and data-driven approaches supports the development of efficient, sustainable, and inclusive urban mobility systems. Continued collaboration between government, industry, academia, and citizens amplifies the effectiveness of UMLs. As cities grow and mobility demands evolve, UMLs are poised to become even more essential in shaping resilient and future-oriented urban environments.
We compared living labs to testbeds and pilot territories, highlighting their unique strengths and roles in developing and validating new technologies and services.
Introduction to Unit 2
UNIT 2 Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
This unit moves from theory to practice by showcasing best-practice examples of urban mobility living labs in action. The Altona Mobility Lab in Hamburg shows how urban redevelopment can foster innovative transport solutions, while Vienna’s Aspern Seestadt Mobility Lab demonstrates the potential power of community-driven, sustainable mobility and integrated energy solutions. The Living Labs Knowledge Base Platform supports these efforts by sharing practical resources and best practices, helping cities across Europe replicate and scale successful models. Together, these examples highlight the real-world impact of mobility living labs.
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
ALTONA MOBILITY LAB
BEST PRACTICE
ASPERN SEESTADT MOBILITY LAB
OTHER EXAMPLES
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
HAMBURG, GERMANY
Altona Mobility Lab
Altona is a borough in the City of Hamburg, situated west of the inner city along the River Elbe. The specific site chosen for the Altona mobility lab is the current location of the large “Holsten-Brauerei” brewery, adjacent to “Mitte Altona.” This site is about 3 km from the river and approximately 1.5 km from Altona-Altstadt, an attractive area known for its housing and shopping opportunities. The neighborhoods of Altona-Altstadt and Ottensen are separated by a main railway line to the west and major transit roads on the other side. However, with Deutsche Bahn AG’s decision to relocate the main inter-city train station further north, significant land has become available for redevelopment.
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
HAMBURG, GERMANY
Mitte Altona
The “Mitte Altona” project aims to transform this brownfield area of disused rail infrastructure into a vibrant new neighborhood, enhancing integration, mobility, and connectivity. The development will provide space for approximately 3,500 new housing units and a district school. Additionally, the Holsten-Brauerei brewery will relocate to a new site in the south (the Hausbruch industrial estate), freeing up even more land for urban redevelopment. This presents an opportunity to focus on innovative mobility solutions that address the needs of both current and future residents, in close coordination with the Mitte Altona project.
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
HAMBURG, GERMANY
Altona Mobility Lab: Overview
Purpose and Objectives
Operators and Supporters
The purpose of the Altona Mobility Lab is to collaboratively address local transport and mobility challenges by co-designing innovative solutions, testing these ideas in real-world settings, and scaling up successful initiatives. To achieve this, the Altona Mobility Lab will address the following challenges:
Stakeholders
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Aspern Seestadt Mobility Lab
Aspern Seestadt is a new urban center in north-eastern Vienna set for completion in 2028. As an Urban Lab within the Smart City Wien initiative, Seestadt serves as a city-within-a-city and an ideal testing ground for innovative urban development, while always keeping residents at the heart of its approach. To address urban challenges and ensure a sustainable, livable future, Vienna has launched the comprehensive Smart City Wien initiative. This cross-sector strategy brings together solutions in infrastructure, energy, mobility, and urban development, supporting the city’s reputation for quality of life, innovation, and robust infrastructure while meeting the evolving needs of its residents.
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Aspern Seestadt Mobility Lab
Aspern Smart City Research
Key projects emphasize innovation and community input: The initiative also promotes active mobility by encouraging cycling, walking, and other eco-friendly transportation options. By implementing Mobility-as-a-Service, it creates customized, integrated solutions that make sustainable travel easier for everyone. These efforts advance the Smart City Wien Framework Strategy by creating sustainable mobility solutions, engaging local residents in development and testing, reducing CO₂ emissions, and enhancing urban mobility infrastructure.
Aspern Seestadt serves as both a showcase project and a living lab for pioneering urban energy solutions, providing an ideal environment to explore the future of urban energy supply. Central to these efforts is Aspern Smart City Research (ASCR), a consortium founded in 2013 by Siemens, Vienna’s infrastructure and utilities operators, the Vienna Business Agency, and Wien 3420 AG development agency. Their shared goal is to demonstrate how cities of the future can operate in a climate-friendly and sustainable manner.
+ Self-Driving Bus
+ Walk and Feel
+ ASCR's Work
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Aspern Seestadt Mobility Lab: Overview
Purpose and Objectives
Operators and Supporters
Stakeholders
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
Living Labs Knowledge Base Platform
The EIT Urban Mobility Knowledge Base Platform is an online resource dedicated to supporting the development and operation of mobility living labs across Europe. The platform offers regularly updated information and practical materials related to living labs and serves as a central hub for cities, businesses, and researchers interested in piloting and scaling innovative, user-centered mobility solutions in real-world environments. Available resources include:
Interactive Mapping
Living Labs Report
Toolbox
Unit 2/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: Best Practices and Examples
Unit in Review
Altona Mobility Lab stands out for engaging residents in co-creating and testing sustainable mobility solutions. Notable achievements include the Walk and Feel project, which uses sensor data to improve urban planning, and the Self-Driving Bus, developed with ongoing community feedback—making Altona a model for participatory, data-driven mobility. On the other hand, Aspern Seestadt is a leading living lab for urban energy and mobility, where the Aspern Smart City Research consortium has equipped buildings to both consume and generate energy. Over 100 households use a Smart Home Control App, enabling real-time research and optimization of smart, energy-efficient living.
The EIT Urban Mobility Knowledge Base Platform furthers these efforts by offering resources, interactive mapping, and best practices to help scale living labs and experimental environments across Europe.
Introduction to Unit 3
UNIT 3 Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
Unit 3 introduces a practical framework for establishing urban mobility living labs through eight systematically connected steps, guiding practitioners from initial planning to the scaling of sustainable innovations . Each of the eight steps builds upon the last to ensure inclusive stakeholder involvement, robust governance, effective resource allocation, and continuous learning. By following this structured approach, cities and researchers can co-create user-driven mobility solutions in real-world settings, assess their impact, and replicate successful models across different urban contexts.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
The 8-Step Process for Creating a Living Lab
Living Labs represent a systematic approach to innovation that places users at the center of development processes in real-life settings. Based on methodologies developed by organizations like the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), the following eight interconnected steps provide a comprehensive framework for establishing and maintaining successful Living Labs:
Planning
Organising
Communicating
Reflecting
Engaging
Identifying
Validating
Scaling
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 1: Planning
The journey begins with thorough planning, where you define the Living Lab's purpose, identify target users and stakeholders, and create a detailed timeline of activities. This foundational step addresses several key challenges, including achieving inclusivity by ensuring diverse representation and actively engaging citizens throughout the innovation process. Planning also builds resilience against unpredictable events by establishing flexible frameworks that can adapt to changing circumstances. A well-structured plan creates the necessary foundation for all subsequent steps, allowing for systematic progression while maintaining adaptability in the face of emerging challenges.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 2: Engaging
With your plan in place, the next step focuses on defining effective strategies for engaging users and stakeholders. This involves creating participatory approaches that foster meaningful involvement from diverse groups, ensuring inclusivity across different backgrounds, abilities, and perspectives. Effective engagement strategies help secure sponsorship by demonstrating that stakeholder input is taken into account to improve innovation outcomes, reduce risks, and increase the likelihood of successful implementation. By establishing clear engagement protocols early in the process, you encourage continuous participation, strengthen user ownership, and ensure that innovations reflect stakeholder preferences.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 3: Organising
Organisation provides the structural framework necessary for your Living Lab's success through the establishment of a steering committee. This governance body brings together representatives from key stakeholder groups to guide the Living Lab's activities and decision-making processes. The committee plays a crucial role in aligning diverse stakeholder values within the Living Lab, ensuring that their perspectives and priorities are integrated into the innovation process. Additionally, it helps establish an effective governance structure that balances flexibility with accountability, creating clear roles, responsibilities, and decision-making protocols that support the Living Lab's operations.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 4: Identifying
This step involves identifying and securing the physical infrastructure, equipment, and resources needed for your Living Lab's experimental phase. It also includes establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) that will measure success and guide evaluation efforts. By clearly articulating resource requirements and expected outcomes, this step helps obtain management sponsorship through demonstrating the tangible value and return on investment that the Living Lab will deliver. Careful consideration of maintenance needs and long-term resource requirements during this phase helps ensure the Living Lab's sustainability beyond initial implementation.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 5: Communicating
Developing a comprehensive communication strategy and associated tools is essential for sharing knowledge within and beyond the Living Lab. Effective communication facilitates information exchange among stakeholders, promotes transparency, and builds trust in the Living Lab process. This step creates channels for disseminating findings, sharing updates, and maintaining engagement throughout the Living Lab's lifecycle. A well-designed communication strategy also helps manage expectations, celebrate successes, and address challenges openly, contributing to a positive and productive Living Lab environment.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 6: Validating
Validation involves checking the application of Living Lab principles throughout your implementation process. This comprehensive assessment addresses all potential challenges, from inclusivity and stakeholder engagement to governance structures and knowledge transfer. It ensures that the Living Lab remains resilient in the face of unpredictable events while maintaining alignment with stakeholder values. Validation also examines whether management sponsorship is being effectively leveraged and if the Living Lab is successfully transferring knowledge within and beyond its boundaries. Additionally, this step begins the process of assessing impact and considering sustainability, laying groundwork for the Living Lab's long-term success and evolution.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 7: Reflecting
Reflection involves identifying and sharing lessons learned from your Living Lab activities, both internally and with other Living Labs. This critical step facilitates knowledge transfer by documenting experiences, insights, and best practices that can benefit the broader Living Lab community. It contributes to impact assessment by examining outcomes against objectives and identifying both successes and areas for improvement. Reflection also supports sustainability by generating insights that can inform future iterations and adaptations of the Living Lab approach, ensuring that it continues to evolve and improve over time.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
STEP 8: Scaling
The final step explores possibilities for transferring, scaling, and replicating your Living Lab's results and processes. This future-oriented phase emphasizes adapting proven solutions for different environments or larger deployments to maximize their reach and effectiveness. It supports knowledge transfer by making methodologies and processes accessible and usable by other practitioners. Scaling also addresses sustainability by identifying pathways for continuing and expanding the Living Lab's work, ensuring that valuable innovations achieve their full potential for creating positive change.
Unit 3/ Urban Mobility Living Labs: How to Create Them
Unit in Review
By following the eight-step process (Planning, Engaging, Organizing, Identifying, Communicating, Validating, Reflecting, and Scaling) practitioners can systematically develop and maintain urban mobility living labs that place users at the center of real-world innovation processes. This structured approach ensures inclusive stakeholder participation, robust governance, and resource alignment while fostering continuous learning and knowledge transfer both within and beyond the living lab. Ultimately, applying these connected steps enables cities and innovators to co-create, validate, and expand sustainable mobility solutions that are evidence-based, adaptable, and capable of driving meaningful urban transformation.
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COURSE: Urban Mobility Labs for Sustainable Cities
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You will receive a certificate of completion jointly awarded by the Consortium partners and EIT Urban Mobility via your email address.
EIT Urban Mobility
the Consortium partners
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Sources
This course was created based on the following list of sources:
Pilot territories refer to designated areas where a new concepts, policies, or solutions are tested on a smaller scale before being implemented more broadly.
Living Labs are dynamic platforms that facilitate the creation and testing of innovative mobility solutions. These labs serve as real-world environments.
POPULATIONHamburg: 1,763,000 inhabitants (2015)District of Altona: 251,563 inhabitants (2010)
LAND AREA Hamburg: 755,2 km² District of Altona: 77.4 km²
Testbed is a controlled environment where new technologies or systems are tested under monitored conditions.
Area of planning zone:240 ha (approx. 340 football pitches) Net building land: 107 ha Green spaces: 54 ha Development horizon: 20 years (until approx. 2030) Vision: 11,500 dwelling units > 25,000 inhabitants by 2030
ASCR's Work
ASCR’s research centers on three Seestadt buildings—a housing complex, student residence, and school campus—equipped with photovoltaic panels, solar thermal systems, hybrid collectors, heat pumps, and energy storage. These buildings both consume and generate energy, acting as decentralized power plants. A key part of the research involves 111 participating households, who provide data on energy use and room climate control. With a Smart Home Control App, residents can manage heating, ventilation, and appliances via smartphone or tablet, helping to optimize smart, energy-efficient living.