The use of participatory techniques in the field of transport is coming to the forefront recently. In this frame, eight co-creation workshops and five online crowdsourcing campaigns took place in Thessaloniki, Southern Tuscany, Rotterdam/The Hague, and Frankfurt, from which many innovative ideas to enhance Public Transport were generated by citizens. A simple list of innovations would not be very useful for Public Transport Operators, as they cannot implement all of them at once. There was an obvious need for their ranking and this is the purpose of this paper. The ranking was realized with the most used Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis method in transportation research, i.e. the Analytic Hierarchy Process, using three criteria: Feasibility, Utility, and Innovativeness. An online questionnaire was distributed to experts, using a modified snowball sampling technique, which yielded 97 completed questionnaires. Utility (42.90%) was found to be the most important criterion, followed by Feasibility (40.10%), and Innovativeness (17.00%). Four lists of innovations were derived, ranked with respect to a) all three examined criteria, b) Feasibility, c) Utility, and d) Innovativeness. The highest ranked innovation for a) and c) was found to be Mobility as a Service and platform with real-time travel, comfort, and multi-modal information; for b) City marketing from a Public Transport perspective; and for d) Advanced e-ticketing system. The results revealed which of the innovations are the most promising and provide valuable insight into how to integrate innovation with Public Transport to make it more attractive. Public Transport Operators may use the results according to the peculiarities of their city and the importance they give to Feasibility, Utility, and Innovativeness.

In recent years, shared mobility services have had a growing presence in cities all over the world. Developing methodologies to measure and evaluate the impacts of shared mobility has therefore become of critical importance for city authorities. This paper conducts a thorough review of the different types of methods that can be used for this evaluation and suggests a classification of them. The pros and cons of each method are also discussed. The added value of the paper is twofold; first, we provide a systematic recording of the state of the art and the state of the practice regarding the evaluation of the impacts of shared mobility, from the perspective of city authorities, reflecting on their role, needs, and expectations. Second, by identifying the existing gaps in the literature, we highlight the specific needs for research and practice in this field that can help society figure out the role of urban shared mobility.

A family of innovative financial mechanisms and tools for urban public transport, based on the value increment caused by enhanced accessibility, are lately gaining much popularity as a solution to the challenges posed by public financial resources’ shrinkage: Value Capture Finance (VCF). The effectiveness of applied transport financing policies depends significantly on the level of agreement among stakeholders, making collaboration a prerequisite for success. The research presented herein assesses alternative financing options for urban public transportation which are based on the VCF concept.

Seamless, efficient transport intermodality is a key aspect of the transition of cities toward sustainable mobility. The new “shared mobility hub” concept is increasingly gaining attention as a potential way to make this urgently needed transition happen. The present paper aims to provide an insightful view of the promising concept of shared mobility hub, initially by looking into the existing literature on its definitions and how they are classified to form different typologies. Following that, a new, flexible typology framework for shared mobility hubs is proposed. This is then applied to several existing hubs in five different cities in The Netherlands (Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Helmond), Spain (Sant Cugat de Vallès, Metropolitan Area of Barcelona), and Portugal (Lisbon). As these countries have different shared mobility policies in place and their citizens have very different mobility habits, we were able to reflect on how the proposed typology functions in varied contexts. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion of a very timely topic in Europe and worldwide, which is the need for the deployment of a new generation of mobility hubs, with an emphasis on shared mobility. We trust that the suggested typology can be useful to policy-makers, local authorities, and transport and urban planners, as it can help with the conducting of a first effective screening with regard to which type of hub is needed for each specific case.

Logistics and transport systems are complex systems for which sustainable innovations are urgently needed. Serious games are an acknowledged tool for training, learning, and decision making, as well as for helping to introduce innovative concepts for complex systems. Technological innovations for the transport domain that can improve sustainability are usually heavily dependent on the collaboration among actors. A simulation gaming approach can help these actors in understanding the challenges involved, and in finding solutions in a playful, interactive way. Our research approach includes a thorough literature review on games for innovation and collaboration in transport networks, and the development of two dedicated simulation games addressing sustainability innovations for the Port of Rotterdam, the largest seaport in Europe and one of the largest in the world. The two innovation cases are truck platooning and multi-sided digital platforms for barge transportation, both improving the sustainability of hinterland transportation. The games serve as instruments to reveal interactions and tensions among actors, contribute to the interpretation of their behavior, and eventually help all parties to reach a better understanding on how innovation adoption can be fostered, using an innovation ecosystem perspective. We are convinced that serious gaming, by providing a better understanding of the innovation process, will help the implementation of sustainability innovations in complex systems.