An electric road, a mobility center, and several mobility projects – it is really something worth announcing! During the year, Lund has continued to develop strengths in the field of mobility, which is partly since mobility and future traffic systems are, amongst other things, key to creating an ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable society. Simultaneously, it is also about employment opportunities where Lund's combined expertise in software development and connectivity can be deemed important.
2020 has been a starting point for Lund's advancement in the field of mobility. This year's big event has been the development of the electric road with tests on Getingevägen underway.
Located adjacently to the electric road, there is also a Mobility Center, where Evolution Road and the project Mobilitet på Tvärs are showcased.
– Lund and Skåne must take a lead in developing the mobility and traffic systems of the future to enable ecological, social, and economic sustainability, while also partake in the employment market that will arise. The development in mobility requires software development and connectivity and this is a hallmark of Lund, says Anders Bengtsson at the Department for Sustainable Growth and Future by Lund.
The Mobility Center houses both an exhibition environment, a test bed, and a meeting place. Evolution Road explains the technology behind the project and provides an opportunity for a virtual bus tour on the electric road. The exhibition is open to visitors, see Evolution Road’s website for more information.
The Mobility Center brings together several actors, such as, Innovation Skåne, Ideon Science Park, Elonroad, Castellum and Future by Lund/Lund municipality. In the property a few floors above, there are also companies, such as Smarter Mobility, that work in the mobility area, and on the other side of the street, Volvo conducts software development. As a result, there are already good conditions for collaboration on mobility issues.
The premises will also offer the Swedish-Danish Interreg ÖKS project Mobilitet på Tvärs a physical place on the Swedish side of the strait.
– The project Mobilitet på Tvärs needs a platform – and this means, not in digital form but an actual surface to meet and discuss future mobility solutions, says Anders Nilsson, Innovation Skåne. It is our vision that this center will put the spotlight on mobility issue and be a physical base for a collaboration forum that extends across Greater Copenhagen. Together we will be able to find exciting solutions.
The project runs between 1 April 2020 and 30 September 2022 and is funded by Interreg ØKS. Participating are 17 partners, twelve Danish and five Swedish – amongst those being Innovation Skåne and Mobile Heights and the three municipalities of Lund (through the Technical Administration and Future by Lund), Sjöbo and Tomelilla. Additionally, there are another 17 actors who are interested in participating.
At the inauguration of the Mobility Center Anneli Xie and Naemi Jaworowski presented a vision for the way in which the center can become a gathering place for mobility and collaborations throughout Greater Copenhagen. This includes the opportunity to show ongoing mobility projects and sustainable mobility solutions. During the autumn, work has continued to realize this vision.
– We will collect projects that may be relevant to mobility and traffic area of the future. The aim is that we will be able to learn from each other, and through this, we enable knowledge sharing and strengthen our collaboration, says Anneli Xie.
The day after the inauguration of the mobility hub, the news arrived that Lund is participating in a strategic project on digital infrastructure. It is the strategic innovation program Drive Sweden that runs the DigInfra project, which is about forming collaboration between cities, authorities, and other important actors relating to digital infrastructure and the future transport system. It is a challenge for many cities and authorities to propose and plan for the connected and sustainable transport system, and the issues are often too complex to be led by individual cities and authorities. DigInfra aims to create a forum for collaboration on these challenges with a special focus on issues related to organizational processes, purchasing, operations, procurement, and skills development.
The project is led by the innovation platform Drive Sweden and the Swedish Transport Administration. Other participating municipalities are Gothenburg, Linköping, and Stockholm. Several the project's activities, such as workshops, will be completed in Lund and the Mobility Center.
In the mobility field, there already exists a collaboration with Stuttgart.
Trabslation: Ben Dohrmann
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