On April 3rd the third online workshop of the GRETA Permanent Working Group with external projects took place. The participants focused on the sustainable and innovative transport solutions for the last mile delivery in urban centers. GRETA partners wish to activate, maintain and exchange synergies with other similar projects to gain and share knowledge and experience on common topics. For this reason, a set of workshops have been and will be organised with external actors on topics related to urban logistics.
Following a short introduction about the GRETA project, provided by Mrs. Alice Benini, Mr. Zuckowski illustrated the pilot activity implemented in Poznan, addressing the problem of freight delivery in the historical city center. This was achieved through the implementation of a micro hub designed to support cargo-bikes for the last mile delivery.
Ms. Marta Ingelmo Gomez, from CIDAUT presented the Valladolid electric micro-mobility fleets, tested within the URBANE project funded under Horizon Europe Programme, in which they used electric vehicles in the urban freight delivery service. Another example from URBANE project was the Helsinki Living Lab, illustrated by Ms. Satu Reijonen in which they tested and evaluated the impact of using automated delivery vehicles (ADVs). The last case concerned the city of Modena, that participated in the project TRACE (Horizon Europe Programme), consisting in an innovative drone-based solution. Mr. Dennis Grasso spoke about the simulation environment in a real 4km² urban area in its Autonomous driving living lab MASA, and a cycling path built on a disused railway line.
Inspired by these innovative solutions, participants discussed their common challenges such as finding the appropriate pilot location, lengthy permit processes, identification of operators ready to test new solutions, weather conditions, promotion and building trust as well as the involvement of stakeholders. Finally, some of the speakers raised the issue of scalability and transferability, financial sustainability and different legislations around Europe.