Improving the environment while making yourself more aware of your mobility choices
CitiCAP project (Citizens’ cap-and-trade co-created) concentrates on enabling and enhancing sustainable mobility in the city of Lahti. Among other measures such as open mobility data platform and sustainable urban mobility plan, the project will develop a real-time tracking and visualization of one’s carbon footprint, based on their travel mode choices. This will be performed via smartphone application. In the future, by using this app, the citizens can trade their carbon allowances and gain benefits for services such as public transportation or sports. This is slowly becoming a reality in Lahti.
Designing the personal carbon trading scheme
During the first months of the project multiple meetings have taken place. Design of the personal carbon trading (PCT) scheme has been the main focus thus far. Earlier this year, a student of the Lahti University of Applied Sciences finished his bachelor’s thesis, “Implementation of personal carbon trading”, in which he analysed previous attempts to implement personal carbon trade. The thesis is partly being utilised by Lappeenranta University of Technology in the development of the model for personal carbon trading scheme. This work is progressing well in schedule and the framework should be ready by the end of April.
Also, research on smart bicycle lanes has been conducted, benchmarking cities like Copenhagen, Barcelona and Amsterdam. This lane, reserved only for bicycles, will also serve as a test bed for smart solutions that will assist in further development of bicycle tracks around the city. An innovation contest for smart solutions will take place during summer.
Gaining the citizens’ perspective
Planning on how to incorporate citizens of Lahti into the project has also taken place. Citizens’ needs and wishes will be taken into consideration before any practical decisions will be made. One of the very first questions in the kick-off meeting in November 2017 was about the citizens. How to involve them? How to create something they can benefit from? How to encourage them to change their behavior? Understanding the motives behind peoples’ decisions is a big piece of the CitiCAP puzzle.
We’re currently in the phase of moving several key elements forward at the same time. While developing, we are also starting to build the ICT platform and are going to have the first SUMP related participatory citizen meetings in April.
During the next few months, we will gather some direct feedback from the citizens for analysis. Knowing what’s important for them will assist us in creating something with public acceptability. That’s the most important factor in this project.
To follow up on the project, please have a look at our website.
Author: Petteri Väisänen, Lahti University of Applied Sciences, student
Urban mobility
