URBANE – Upscaling Innovative Green Urban Logistics Solutions Through Multi-Actor Collaboration and PI-Inspired Last Mile Deliveries

URBANE, or Upscaling Innovative Green Urban Logistics Solutions Through Multi-Actor Collaboration and PI-inspired Last Mile Deliveries, is a Horizon Europe project that started in September 2022 and will run until February 2026.

URBANE will support the transition path towards effective, resilient, safe and sustainable last-mile transport, through four Lighthouse Living Labs (LL) in Helsinki, Bologna, Valladolid and Thessaloniki.

A key component of the project is the replication of its results and lessons learned. This will facilitated by its URBANE Innovation Transferability Platform comprising Digital Twinning Tools, open models, smart contracts governed by blockchain technology and a data-driven Impact Assessment Radar. Two Twinning LLs will be undertaken in Barcelona and Karlsruhe, demonstrating their own solutions.

URBANE’s commitment to upscaling is further strengthened by the engagement of six early adopters (Follower Cities) in feasibility studies of the innovations’ adoption, thus stimulating the formulation of new LL communities across Europe.

OBJECTIVES

• Analyse the physical, digital, social and business dimensions of complex last-mile logistics delivery systems.
• To define target strategic innovations and develop a new framework to facilitate the co-creation of innovative and green last-mile delivery solutions.
• To set up, prototype, test and demonstrate last mile innovative solutions in four Lighthouse LLs (Wave 1), leveraging green automated and connected mobility.
• Provide the infrastructural enablers for Innovation Transferability including consensus protocols to support collaborative services in local logistics networks governed by smart contracts, Digital Twinning capabilities and data-driven decision-making tools to enable replicability of most performing practices.
• Model, deploy and demonstrate smart solutions in two Twining Living Labs (Wave 2), clearly evidencing the level of adaptation of models and efficient replicability of solutions demonstrated in Wave 1 LLs.
• Develop business plans and design a commercialisation path for key project outcomes.
• Disseminate, promote scale-up, enable effective policymaking, and support relevant LL initiatives at the EU level.