On Thursday, the 24th of October in Leuven, the eHUBS project held a workshop dedicated to the identification of effective forms of public-private cooperation, with the objective to effectively deploy shared and electric mobility hubs in cities in North-West Europe. As the implementation of eHUBS involves many stakeholders from both the public and the private sector, the workshop was intended to serve as a platform for exchanging ideas between cities and private mobility providers, and listen to the views and suggestions of private actors on the rollout of eHUBS in cities.
A wide audience of 45 participants attended the workshop: the six eHUBS pilot cities, universities, network organisations involved in the project, representatives of other cities interested in the eHUBS project, such as Antwerp and Brussels, and providers of micromobility, shared mobility, charging infrastructure and MaaS.
The workshop kicked off with the introductory presentations by Karen Vancluysen, Secretary General of Polis, on the eHUBS project and the current micromobility (r)evolution, and by Philippe Crist, Advisor for Innovation and Foresight for the International Transport Forum at the OECD, on data and urban space management. These were followed by the presentations of the eHUBS implementation strategies and use cases in pilot cities by Debbie Dekkers of the City of Amsterdam and Liselotte van Gils from the City of Leuven.
The second part of the workshop was dedicated to five parallel focus groups led by the eHUBS pilot cities, which aimed to discuss a number of different aspects related to the business cases for eHUBS. Among others, the topics touched upon were: objectives of the implementation of eHUBS in the city environment, business models, definition of target groups, potential barriers to eHUBS use, minimum service levels for eHUBS, responsibilities of different stakeholders, data sharing standards.
The workshop proved to be successful in acknowledging the high interest of different stakeholders active in the provision of new mobility services, micromobility, and shared mobility, in getting involved with cities for a fruitful collaboration in the deployment and promotion of eHUBS.
Thanks to the feedback gathered in the workshop, the eHUBS project partners will gain insight into the crucial elements of a positive business case. As a next step, a method will be developed, so that also other public authorities and stakeholders can use it to effectively deploy and promote electric and shared mobility hubs in European cities. This objective will be realised by organising the information obtained in a business model canvas, under the lead of the University of Antwerp. The tool will contribute to the elaboration and the reflection on the conclusions of the workshop, as well as to the dissemination among the participants and any stakeholder who might be interested in the replication of the eHUBS experience.
