Oslo’s activities are ready to take-off
Oslo, one of LEAD’s Living Labs, has started working on its activities. The goals of its Living Lab are aligned with the Oslo transport strategy to contribute to the decarbonisation of transport and reducing its externalities, while improving mobility options, with a specific focus on freight.
Oslo plans to explore a microhub concept by carrying out experiments in the Skøyen hub to explore the potential for more crowd-shipping. The hub will be manned, with cooling facilities and charging facilities for e-vehicles. The location should allow for using various types of e-vehicles but also being served by other vehicles in non-dedicated trips and public transport (PT) commuters for smaller items. IKEA facilities will be the departure point the set of alternative scenarios will challenge the current B2C transport pattern.
Unlike other project Living Labs (Madrid, Porto, The Hague and Budapest), the Norwegian partners did not organise a kick-off online workshop to bring together the members of its Community of Practice, but carried out a series of bilateral meetings instead. A combination of COVID-related lockdowns and a peak in demand for B2C deliveries made a conventional workshop difficult to arrange. Thus, to allow for more flexibility local partners decided to arrange exchanges with highly experienced professionals where opportunities and threats related to the 4 scenarios were thoroughly discussed.
The exchanges were carried out with three attendees from two different organisations (DHL Express and Institute of Transport Economics (TÖI), chosen considering the specificities of the Oslo living lab.
As a result of the exchanges, it was concluded that the different developed scenarios created for the Living Lag are realistic and feasible. The main threat is to find a suitable location for the mobility hub near the residential areas in the urban Centre.
In fact, the lack of a suitable area for the mobility hub at Skøyen was a challenge that has slowed down the external stakeholders’ involvement. However, once the location is agreed upon, this list will incorporate additional members, including the residents in the mobility hub’s area enriching the Community of Practice (CoP). Currently, it already counts with some stakeholders including the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA), national industry and commerce association, researchers, the urban public transport company (RUTER), and businesses engaged directly in the shipment (i.e. IKEA), among others.
The workshop’s conclusions will directly contribute to LEAD’s Work Package 1: Adaptive City Logistics Framework and LEAD Value Cases.
