Port Cities can be seen as multidimensional laboratories where challenges connected with urban mobility are more complex due to the dual system of gravity centre: the city, the port, not to mention their shared hinterland.These peculiarities are at once a challenge and an opportunity, as they provide scope for planning, researching and implementing integrated mobility solutions in distinctively complex urban contexts. Civitas PORTIS designs, demonstrates and evaluates integrated sets of sustainable mobility measures in 5 major port cities located on the North Sea (Aberdeen and Antwerp), the Mediterranean Sea (Trieste), the Black Sea (Constanta), and Baltic Sea (Klaipeda). The project also involves a major international follower port city on the East China Sea (Ningbo). Thanks to the Civitas Initiative, the partner cities expect to prove that more efficient and sustainable mobility is conducive to the establishment of vital and multi-modal hubs for urban, regional, national and International movements of passengers and goods. To do this, they establish integrated living laboratories clustering local measures according to four major aspects of sustainable urban mobility: 1. Governance: to increase port-city collaborative planning and participation, leading to enhanced forms of SUMPs. 2. People: to foster less car-dependent mobility styles, leading to modal shift in favour of collective and more active transport. 3. Transport system: to strengthen the efficiency of road traffic management to/from the port and through the city, and foster the use of clean vehicles. 4. Goods: to enhance logistics and freight transport, improving the efficiency and coordination of city, port and regional freight movements. Working with port cities, Civitas PORTIS will generate a strong and twofold replication potential: 1) specifically to other port cities, and 2) more generally to cities presenting major transport nodes and attractors for the benefit of the whole CIVITAS Initiative.

FastTrack will deliver climate-resilient urban, peri-urban and rural areas through the deployment of sustainable mobility innovations across 24 local areas, involving 20 local authority project affiliates, and 4 ambassadorial partners. FastTrack presents a suite of interlinking methods that provide local authorities with opportunities to learn from the best, capturing and presenting the experiences of those who have successfully accelerated transition. FastTrack’s twin-track core learning programme includes five separate FastTrack Capacity Building Weeks over 24 months: 1. Deep learning and exchange within the consortium, across four topic-based clusters guided by interests expressed by our 24 authorities. Each event will be led by an Ambassador (from Antwerp, Bologna, Budapest or Stockholm), supported by technical partners (WP2) 2. Meet the FastTrackers events, where 24 authorities will be introduced to skills and learning on cross-cutting topics (such as data, funding and governance) and will develop innovations with insights and inputs from external stakeholders recruited through a FastTrack database (including innovation networks, projects, funders, and end-users) (WP3) This programme will be informed by a rapid, intense review of innovation and exchange practices (WP1). An internal, competitive programme will fund small-scale “springboard studies”, rewarding outstanding innovation ideas with the most widespread internal interest and greatest potential for applicability and replicability across the EU. In culmination, programme pillars will be gathered in a performance management activity to oversee 24 deployment plans, as authorities rapidly refine, focus and develop innovations (WP4). Exploitable recommendations for process, and new solutions, technologies and approaches, will be supported by a further outreach phase, giving extra opportunity for on-the-ground deployment to be reflected in FastTrack’s final recommendations and results.

The primary aim of MORE is to develop and implement procedures for the comprehensive co-design of urban main road corridor infrastructure feeding the European TEN-T network, to accommodate their current and future multi-modal and multi-functional requirements; and to address severe problems of congestion, sustainability, noise, air pollution, safety, security, etc., in situations where building new roads is not an option. And in such cases to enable city authorities to make the best use of available road-space, by optimally allocating the available capacity dynamically, in space and time; taking advantage of advances in big data and digital eco-systems, and in new vehicle technologies and operating systems, in materials and construction technologies, and in dynamic traffic signing and lane marking capabilities. This aim is achieved by comprehensively assessing the needs of all road user groups - and of those who live, work and visit the area – drawing on existing knowledge and extensive stakeholder engagement, to establish design criteria. Key performance indicators will be developed to define and measure the degree to which a road is operating satisfactorily, and to set out design requirements when performance is sub-standard. Four web or computer-based tools will be developed to assist in the road-space reallocation design process, covering: option generation, stakeholder engagement, micro-simulation of road user behaviour, and a comprehensive, multi-modal appraisal tool. The project will test these tools and procedures through the detailed development of street design packages at test sites (feeder route corridors) in five partner cities on different TEN-T networks, and on- and off-road trials will be carried out to test some of the components. Based on these various outputs, MORE will develop new guidelines for optimal urban road-space allocation and disseminate and exploit them and the design tools, widely throughout Europe.

PIONEERS brings together four ports with different characteristics, but shared commitments towards meeting the Green Deal goals and Blue Growth socio-economic aims, in order to address the challenge for European ports of reducing GHG emissions while remaining competitive. In order to achieve these ambitions, the Ports of Antwerp-Bruges, Barcelona, Venlo and Constanta will implement green port innovation demonstrations across four main pillars: clean energy production and supply, sustainable port design, modal shift and flows optimization, and digital transformation. Actions include: renewable energy generation and deployment of electric, hydrogen and methanol vehicles; building and heating networks retrofit for energy efficiency and implementation of circular economy approaches in infrastructure works; together with deployment of digital platforms (utilising AI and 5G technologies) to promote modal shift of passengers and freight, ensure optimised vehicle, vessel and container movements and allocations, and facilitate vehicle automation. These demonstrations form integrated packages aligned with other linked activities of the ports and their neighbouring city communities. Forming an Open Innovation Network for exchange, the ports, technology and support partners will progress through project phases of innovation demonstration, scale-up and co-transferability. Rigorous innovation and transfer processes will address technology evaluation and business case development for exploitation, as well as creating the institutional, regulatory and financial frameworks for green ports to flourish from technical innovation pilots to widespread solutions. These processes will inform and be undertaken in parallel with masterplan development and refinement, providing a Master Plan and roadmap for energy transition at the PIONEERS ports, and handbook to guide green port planning and implementation for different typologies of ports across Europe.

‘SUMP-PLUS’ is a three-year RIA, designed to address urban mobility related challenges and to exploit new opportunities, by developing a strong, rigorous evidence base through a co-created City Laboratories approach (to be demonstrated in different EU cities) building on the strengths of the existing SUMPs and SULPs. SUMP-PLUS will develop and apply transition pathways towards more sustainable cities taking into account the need to establish stronger links with other urban system components. It has 4 primary policy objectives: 1. To develop and apply a set of context-specific mobility transformation pathways that will enable cities to map out a practical implementation pathway. 2. To demonstrate how cities can develop stronger links with other urban system components (education, health, retail, land use planning, etc.) - while taking into account disruptive technological and contextual developments - so that urban mobility and accessibility can be delivered more comprehensively, efficiently and effectively. 3. To identify new solutions that will increase efficiency and sustainability, in both the freight and passenger sectors. 4. To identify and demonstrate new partnerships and business models that enable various mobility objectives to be met cost-effectively through appropriate public/private sector partnerships These objectives will be met and demonstrated through a programme of trials and comprehensive evaluation, in six co-created City Laboratories. This requires achieving 4 operational objectives: developing appropriate urban governance arrangements and advanced analytics; extensive stakeholder engagement and co-creation of outputs; producing enhanced SUMP-PLUS guidance matching the different needs and maximising impact through a targeted range of dissemination, capacity building, knowledge transfer and legacy exploitation activities.