Thessaloniki Smart Mobility Living Lab-ΤΗΕSSM@LL

By project 2050 CliMobCity

Published on 29 June 2022

Greece

Kentriki Makedonia

About this good practice

THESSM@LL is one of the most important mobility living labs (LLs) in Europe, actively engaged with the end-users and relevant community stakeholders and pursues a co-creation and co-design strategy of innovative technological solutions to improve transport conditions and upgrade mobility services with the final end of a better living experience of the citizens. The first period of activities was mainly dedicated to the development of a suite of data-intensive info-mobility services for the citizens of the Region of Central Macedonia, for instance by real time GPS tracking of taxis and censored detection of road traffic.
Since then an extensive ecosystem was created, by attracting data providers, participating in many European/Νational projects and shouldered by the Region of Central Macedonia, the Municipality of Thessaloniki, public and private transport operators, technology providers, research and academia. The added value of the data collection and analysis is guidance on decision making for new infrastructure, traffic management, traffic lights optimization and citizens’ encouragement for sustainable mobility based on real time data on congestion.
THESSM@LL has become the test bed for new technologies and innovative mobility solutions. It also always responds to actual challenges. During the COVID-era, the more detailed analysis of transport conditions and citizens’ behavior allowed support to decision and policy makers towards better recovering & agile planning.

Resources needed

The main funding sources of ΤΗΕSSM@LL are its participation in national/international funded projects and the development of added value services for third parties. In the long term, THESSM@ALL aims to be fully sustainable by its own resources in terms of infrastructure and staff.

Evidence of success

THESSM@LL has created a wide network of mobility related stakeholders through its core memberships in pioneer organizations like the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL). Today, after 10 years of investment in big data analysis & forecasting, the LL’s mobility platforms are used by the citizens for being informed of traffic conditions & abnormal situations. Additionally, LL continuously proves its amazing power for common understanding and win-win situation building on new mobility services.

Potential for learning or transfer

The innovation, collaboration, development and testing of new services under real-world conditions, having always the citizen in the center, are among the main priorities of the THESSM@LL. In addition to the added value for the ecosystem, the Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT) maintains an open data portal providing historical and real-time data, always complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Data provision from LL infrastructure can help the impact assessment of urgent conditions, such as COVID measures implementation and guide in COVID free policy and decision making.
THESSM@LL, leading the “ENOLL’s mobility working group” and the “Towards Zero Pollution joint working group” of the European Commission called EC-ENOLL is developing its potential for learning and knowledge transfer.