June Consortium Meeting

Partners recently met in Zaragoza to visit the city’s Living Lab and see the project interventions first-hand. The meeting also served as an opportunity to hold in-person workshops, where the ELABORATOR Lighthouse and Follower cities were able to exchange ideas and perspectives, and update the consortium on the progress of their respective Living Labs. ELABORATOR considers that innovation must be enacted in response to citizens’ needs, requirements, and desires, in cooperation with local stakeholders’ perspectives and capabilities, depending on each city’s socioeconomic and technological context.

Lund Co-creation Workshop: Adapting City Spaces for Older Women

On 23 May, Lunds Kommun and the Linköping University Department of Thematic Studies (TEMA), hosted a co-creation workshop with elderly women (65+) to gather their insights on the future development of Mårtenstorget and Östra Mårtensgatan, two key areas of the city of Lund in Sweden. The workshop combined exploratory walks and roundtable discussions, focusing on key aspects such as traffic safety, accessibility, comfort, and public space design. Key concerns raised included chaotic traffic conditions, lack of green spaces and trees, poorly defined spaces for walking, cycling, and driving, and obstacles on sidewalks that impact accessibility. Participants proposed: clearer signage for car parking and traffic flow; well-marked pedestrian and bike lanes; fewer parking spots in the square; and more room for the market, trees, greenery, and even fountains. This initiative is an important step toward creating safer, more accessible urban spaces, especially for elderly women, who are among the most affected by single-person crashes in Lund.

The Results are In: Breaking Down the Barriers for Female Commuters in Trikala, Greece

A recent study from ELABORATOR, URBANA, and E-Trikala has delved into the barriers that women in Trikala face, preventing them from cycling, walking, or using public transport. Trikala has a cycling culture that is bolstered by its infrastructure, initiatives, and terrain, making it one of Greece’s most bike-friendly cities. Nonetheless, a number of physical and sociocultural barriers continue to prevent women from cycling (and other forms of sustainable mobility). In order to create focused interventions that support sustainable and active modes of transportation, a targeted survey of 117 women who live in Trikala, its suburbs, and neighbouring villages, has explored their mobility patterns and needs. The study reveals caregiving, car dependency, and safety fears are shaping the way women move around the city—and why change is urgently needed. Read more here.

Sharing the Project in Europe

The ELABORATOR Project has been proudly showcased at a number of European conferences recently including the 16th ITS European Conference in Seville, the Net Zero Cities EU Conference in Valencia, and the Cities Mission ‘Empowering Cities – the Climate Neutral and Smart Cities’ Conference in Vilnius.

About ELABORATOR

ELABORATOR is a European Living Lab project focused on designing sustainable urban mobility solutions for climate-neutral cities, involving co-creation with vulnerable user groups and local authorities. Funded by the Horizon EU programme, iRAP is one of 38 partners involved the project using a holistic approach for planning, designing, implementing and deploying innovations and interventions for sustainable urban mobility. These may include smart enforcement tools, space redesign and dynamic allocation, shared services, and integration of active and green modes of transportation. The interventions will be demonstrated in several cities across Europe, starting with six Lighthouse Cities of Milan (Italy), Copenhagen (Denmark), Helsinki (Finland), Issy-les-Moulineaux (France), Zaragoza (Spain) and Trikala (Greece); and six Follower Cities including Lund (Sweden), Liberec (Czech Republic), Velenje (Slovenia), Split (Croatia), Krusevac (Serbia) and Ioannina (Greece). Each city will be implementing one or more innovative ‘interventions’ to improve urban mobility, with the aim of demonstrating how to implement the intervention and showcase their effectiveness to ‘Observer’ Cities.

Stay abreast of project news here.

Header image credit: Pexels Centre for Ageing Better and ELABORATOR