GeoSence elaborates on geofencing solutions aiming at improving traffic flow, safety and air quality. Challenges on how to obtain user acceptance and useful improvements are addressed. To tackle these challenges, the overall objective of the project is to design, trial and evaluate geofencing concepts and solutions for specific cases in cities, within the project and from other previous/ongoing geofencing initiatives, and to propose new ways of successfully deploying geofencing technologies. The starting point will be current practices, and the end point, solutions that are feasible for implementation. To obtain satisfactory solutions, user acceptance, and if needed behavioural changes, must be envisioned. Furthermore, robust evidence from potential and impact studies will be used to guide the design choices. Moreover, policies needed to allow and monitor the introduction of new and improved geofenced functionalities will be created and proposed, e.g. phased access restrictions and charges for non-zeroemission vehicles. Finally, tools for implementation, as well as approaches to scale-up and spread the innovation further in Europe will be proposed including e.g. ways of integrating geofencing functionalities in the decision making, built environment and traffic management in cities. GeoSence will provide a strategic implementation guide with recommendations for integration in planning, SUMPs and SULPs.

Across Europe, cities are attempting to radically reduce their reliance on car-based mobility in order to address a full range of sustainability challenges. Two major shortcomings, however, are hindering these efforts towards a 'post-car' city: first, they lack proactive vision towards cities that are not only sustainable but also accessible without cars, and second, they lack effective strategies to deal with strong, built-in systemic resistance to a change of the status quo. This project will generate knowledge addressing these shortcomings. Central to EX-TRA's approach are transition experiments in city streets, or 'intentional, temporary changes in street use, regulation and/or form, aimed at exploring systemic change towards a 'post-car' city'. By way of urban living labs in Amsterdam, Bologna, Milan, Ghent, Munich and London, we will generate insights into: (1) possible combinations of physical design and regulation that increase the types of usage and inclusivity amongst users of city streets; (2) transport and land use conditions for the purpose of enabling and improving walking and cycling accessibility in city districts; (3) shared mobility platforms and micro-mobility and freight delivery options which complement attractive streets and accessible districts; and (4) strategies of change that can accelerate the transition towards a 'post-car' city.

Public procurement is firmly in the spotlight in the Covid-19 crisis. Local authorities (LAs) spend around £100bn (or 47% of their total budget) annually on procurement (IoG,2018). In the Covid-19 crisis, it is crucial that this money delivers the maximum benefit for communities - whether providing for public health (including testing-tracking-tracing responsibilities), for social care (including care home provision), or as one of the key economic levers through which the local economy is to be restarted. Ineffective procurement arrangements present risks for the delivery/continuity of public services in the crisis. Where rapid scaling-up of services is necessary, the limits of some LAs' capacities (and their supply-chains) are often being tested as costs, staff and supply shortages increase. LAs must simultaneously act to protect essential supply-chains where demand has collapsed (e.g. transport, facilities management). Such challenges require smart and agile procurement responses to build strong, effective and efficient relationships and generate positive impacts for local communities. This study will investigate these urgent issues, and how gains might be achieved in the response to Covid-19. The team will examine emerging opportunities to maximise the impact of, and leverage additional value from LA procurement. With extensive involvement and support from key stakeholders, this project will examine what is working well, less well, why, and with what effects and implications. It asks how, and how effectively, are LAs using procurement to address the challenges posed by Covid-19? What are the successes to be celebrated? Where are the tensions that need to be managed? Where is the system at risk of breaking down? What opportunities are there for improved procurement performance? The project will encourage reflection on the ability of the 'procurement ecosystem' to respond in a crisis; clarifying critical-success-factors and pressure-points and discussing what to do next. The project will seek to identify potential leverage from an accumulation of 'positive-sum' gains. Reports here identify a long list of such potential gains, resulting from strategic, entrepreneurial and, particularly, relational approaches that strengthen the system and promote resilience. In the absence of these approaches the system may still operate - but at risk of being substantially underpowered. Impact from the study will derive from important project findings regarding effective crisis strategies; effective 'workarounds' to maintain safety, continuity and resilience (including creative commissioning processes, using the flexibility in existing procurement legislation, and combining complementary capabilities amongst supply-chain partners); and effective ways in which trust, openness and collaboration are emerging to drive innovative ways to aggregate and channel resources.