Urban Radar, a French based start-up supported by EIT Urban Mobility, was selected to run a pilot project on curb management and urban logistics in Barcelona, one of the leading European smart cities. Urban Radar’s platform fits in Barcelona’s strategy by enabling communities and city managers to take an accessible data-centric approach. Thanks to this solution, carbon emissions, pollution, and congestion will be reduced, thereby contributing to more sustainable mobility of people and goods.
Following EIT Urban Mobility’s mission to improve mobility to make cities more liveable places, Urban Radar’s pilot proposal focuses on enabling sectoral collaborations and tailoring tools to improve the way city logistics is currently understood, coordinated, and regulated. The coordinated work with the city of Barcelona has delivered insights on how the current network of loading zones (AreaDUM- Area of Urban Distribution of Goods) is utilised, and what policies and changes could be made to the network to better address the needs of citizens and industry.
On the pilot project, Raül Feliu, Business Creation Manager at EIT Urban Mobility, explained that this project is at the core of EIT Urban Mobility’s mission to create more liveable urban spaces by tackling the logistics and curb management challenges faced by the city of Barcelona and by many other European cities.
According to Philippe Rapin, CEO of Urban Radar, this pilot is a win-win. “Our technology can combine multiple data sets to build measurable impact solutions in a quick, affordable, and secure way together with the city of Barcelona”.
The pilot project is one of the first steps on Barcelona’s mission towards a new governance model in urban logistics, founded on public-private collaborations and the digitalisation of logistics activity and loading zones.
Àngel López, Director of Mobility Strategies at the city of Barcelona considers the project a key turning point to better manage the last-mile logistics and the continuous flow of vehicles and packages across districts. This collaboration between Barcelona, Urban Radar, and EIT Urban Mobility will positively impact citizens’ life by lowering congestion, improving air quality and promoting more sustainable urban logistics.
