Call for Proposals for Factory for #ChallengeMyCity Madrid. Challenge B: Safety for bicycle paths & monitoring of cyclist flows

Challenge description
In order to increase the use of active mobility infrastructure, the city of Madrid aims to improve its safety and/or quality. Bike lanes often lack safety and signalling equipment that, if installed, would offer the users a better, lower-risk experience and journey. Consequently, it aims to test innovative solutions that can provide increased safety through the use of smart signalling devices, new lighting techniques, systems that enable enhanced safety by monitoring cyclist flows of users through the implementation of sensors, or similar smart solutions. These devices or systems should be easy to install/uninstall. The applicants are asked to propose the experimentation of a solution along an existing bike lane or at specific intersections. The ideal scale of the experimentation is along a 1km cycle path (but applicants may propose a different length based on production and implementation costs), and the city reserves the possibility to discuss and define this size with the selected applicants. For physical hardware solutions, the site of the experimentation would preliminarily be in the new Paseo Castellana bike lane around the metro station Nuevos Ministerios. The objective is to upgrade the safety and/or quality of the current cycling infrastructure, to guarantee the safety of all cyclists and monitor its use to incentivize the uptake of bicycles in the city mobility system. Solutions that additionally monitor the current use of the bike lanes and understand where improvements are needed will be positively evaluated, since monitoring the usage of the bike lanes to analyse the mostused paths, the safest ones, etc, enable an eventual upgrade of their design and the whole infrastructure. Proposals that bring additional features that provide benefits towards the end-user’s experience, city integrability and planning, and/or the environmental impact will be positively evaluated. This includes enhancements such as climate neutral/positive materials and infrastructure, energy self-sufficiency of safety devices, innovative plug-and-play sensors and monitoring dashboards, amongst others.

Technical requirements when starting the test for Challenge A
The awarded provider will have to manage the installation of the necessary equipment and the maintenance of the devices (sensors) and eventually its deinstallation. It will have to coordinate the management of its activity with the Municipality of Madrid

Expected outcomes and impact
The expected impact is to enhance safety of cyclists, the quality of cycling when using the cycle lane where the pilot takes place. This includes an overall reduction of risk and of conflicts with other road users. In addition, expected impact is also to monitor the infrastructure and the impact of these improvements. Therefore, the provider will have to demonstrate the impact of the solution proposed by presenting specific results to the city and the EIT Urban Mobility. In order to objectively quantify the social and economic impact, applicants are requested to include in their proposals a series of performance metrics. These metrics should relate to the usage of the bike lane (such as number of users or time of use), as well as other qualitative metrics relating to the users (user profile, user satisfaction, etc.). Further metrics of relevant information on the pilot will also be necessary (such as energy consumption of the infrastructure if any, any undesired incidents such as accidents or damage to the installation, etc.).
Applicants will propose performance and climate impact potential metrics and will be required to provide real pilot data in the final month of the pilot implementation. This is to be shared with EIT Urban Mobility and extended members for the impact assessment. The data should be exploitable by these parties and therefore be compliant with GDPR rules. Lead Partners are also encouraged to provide further data, including feedback directly from users, to compliment the evaluation of impact performed. The evaluation of impact will allow the solution providers to demonstrate the benefits generated by their product or service, allowing them to de-risk their solution and obtain a significantly strengthened market position. In order to address gender bias, special consideration will be taken regarding how proposals strive for gender equality in aspects related to the pilot operation.

Source / contact: Just launched! Call for Proposals for Factory: #ChallengeMyCity - Madrid - EIT Urban mobility