The proposal should address the question on how to deal with limited urban public space and conflicting demands for it between transport and other users, considering social and climate goals and the need to shift towards more energy efficient and sustainable modes of transport, decarbonisation of the heating and cooling infrastructures.
Each proposal should envisage pilot demonstrations in at least three cities (lead cities) situated each in a different Member State or Associated Country including both urban and sub-urban areas. Proposals should provide the necessary evidence of the cities’ commitment to test and implement the co-designed solutions. To foster replicability and up-taking of the outcomes, each proposal should also engage at least three replication/follower cities with the development of local replication plans.

The pilots should involve a co-design process with the stakeholders concerned by the re-design of the urban space. The pilots should involve public and private local energy, mobility and industrial stakeholders as well as civil society to identify integrated, locally supported and space-saving solutions and related pre-conditions (incentives, participatory methods, etc.) in a change management process to gain public acceptance by information, participation and consideration of groups that were so far disadvantaged by existing conditions.

Proposals should address the following two areas of intervention:

1. Reallocation of space and re-design of infrastructure
This is a major game changer in cities in favour of more sustainable and efficient use of resources through integrated approaches that promote decarbonisation of different sectors notably sustainable modes of transport, buildings and industry and related services. By (re)designing and reallocating the urban public space to reflect the level of use of different transport modes, unsustainable transport, heating and cooling modes can be discouraged while sustainable ones incentivised. Smart urban public space design and management is also a key enabler for scaling-up new mobility services. First, it can help to develop more sustainable and accessible mobility services, with stations and hubs for shared devices and charging infrastructures, dedicated lanes for light and active modes, pick-up and drop-off zones, etc. Also, it can help to increase the acceptance of sustainable mobility services, by mitigating negative externalities caused by the inadequate use of urban space, such as illegal parking, and cluttering the sidewalks by e-scooters, advertising banners, traffic signals and others.

The same applies to the planning and management of urban space to accommodate local clean and smart energy infrastructures to power the different uses of energy including mobility, buildings, commercial and industrial activities. One goal of the energy system integration would be to optimise the use of urban space and existing infrastructures to avoid unnecessary investments in distribution grids while increasing energy autonomy of the municipalities and reducing losses in transmission and distribution of energy. Moreover, planning and implementing simultaneously infrastructure projects can significantly reduce investment costs and space needs such as e.g. building an underground car park together with space for a geothermal heat pump or thermal heat storage.

Four of the following research actions should be addressed to overcome these challenges either in the mobility or energy area:

• Develop integrated transport and urban planning tools and methods to coordinate sustainable mobility services and the design of future public realms, accounting also for their interrelations and impacts across different spatial and temporal scales. This should be linked to the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP) of the cities.
• For electromobility, foster research results from pilot projects on reallocation of use of transport infrastructure – or use of the single infrastructure for diverse types of vehicles, amenities (such as bi-directional charging points), and vehicles (e.g. after hours sharing of publicly accessible transport fleets) throughout the community of stakeholders at EU level.
• Research solutions for the exploitation of legacy infrastructure and how it can contribute to the scaling of sustainable mobility services followed by projects and demonstrations that can help to better understand this space shift, and play a significant role in the design, piloting and roll-out and assessment of these new mobility services.; Past experiences with street space reallocation (e.g. temporary infrastructures under COVID-19) can serve as a basis.
• Involvement of current service providers and infrastructure managers (e.g. parking service providers) in the urban space ecosystem to understand how current players can contribute to new mobility services, increased multimodality, electrification and integrated city logistics and citizens’ mobility.
• With regards to energy, support pilot projects to increase understanding and exploitation of the potential of road space allocation and smart distributed energy generation and green city zones/infrastructures in a systemic manner and monitoring their positive effects on human well-being.
• Research opportunities for exploiting current infrastructures (e.g. buildings, grids, underground spaces) complemented by additional elements (e.g. access to data in real time, demand response, storage, smart charging, heat and energy storage) to facilitate local energy communities, virtual power plants and energy sharing while minimising the need for new infrastructures requiring space and facilitating multipurpose construction projects. This should also include the integration of thermal and electricity grids and storage to better manage and balance renewable electricity generation and demand.
• Establish an integrated approach for designing and decarbonising the heating and cooling networks (including distributed installations and small-scale networks and related storage) in cities and urban areas in synchronisation with planning of new housing, major renovations or industrial development related to major heat consuming or waste heat generating facilities.
• Explore ways of using/optimising green and blue infrastructures to city and street scale for improving urban climate, reduce the energy demand and in view of emission free transport.

2. Dynamic curb-side management and use
Smart management of urban space and existing infrastructure includes their dynamic use, when considering curb space, changing its role and function in time, depending on parameters, functions and needs in relation to commuting peak hours, deliveries, public transport priority, market days, nightlife, etc. Dynamic space management is already being explored in some cities and represents an opportunity for further integration in mobility plans with the support of smart technologies, Intelligent Transport Systems, Local Digital Twins and Mobility Data Spaces, AI based autonomous optimal control and management systems.

As the rise of new shared mobility services such as ride hailing, micromobility and the growth in urban goods delivery (even more so with the recent exponential growth of e-commerce) are challenging traditional ways of managing curb space, novel approaches are needed. Research on a shift away from curb use focused on street parking to a more flexible and dynamic allocation that for example includes pick-up and drop-off zones for passengers and freight or dedicated public transport lanes during peak hours, has also shown the potential to enhance and prioritise sustainable mobility services, and thus decrease the pressure on traffic thanks to an increased percentage of shared rides.

To ensure the implementation of these innovative approaches, R&I could support by developing:

• Tools and guidelines to ensure the implementation of innovative approaches of dynamic space and curb use, resulting from tests and pilots of flexible allocation of curb side functions, including pick-up and drop-off zones for passengers and freight.
• New models of fee calculation (e.g. trip purpose, space demand (size) of each vehicle using the public domain, etc.) and financial model for the use of public space in cities in view of reaching public policy goals including climate neutrality.