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TRANSPORT-Transport 2025

Geofencing strategies for implementation in urban traffic management and planning

Alternative title: Bruk av geofence teknologi til planlegging og trafikkregulering i byområder

Awarded: NOK 2.6 mill.

The GeoSence project will develop solutions for the use of geofence technology and systems adapted to the needs and challenges of European cities, which can contribute to improving safety, traffic flow and environmental consequences in urban areas. The project will also address topics such as user acceptance, governance, privacy and legislation. To tackle these challenges, the overall goal of the project is to design, test and evaluate geofence concepts and solutions for specific issues in different European cities. The project takes as its starting point various previous and ongoing geofencing initiatives, and challenges that European cities experience with geofencing, and develops new areas of use together with the partner cities. By addressing topics such as user acceptance, governance, privacy and legislation, and various effects of geofence initiatives, the project will propose strategies for more extensive implementation, with relevance also for other European cities. The Norwegian part of the project consists in particular of the initial work, with mapping and understanding of previous and ongoing geofence initiatives, as well as further implementation. The mapping has been carried out, with a completed literature study and a published report based on this. In addition, in 2021/2022, interviews were conducted with relevant actors in the partner countries, and data was sent out and collected in a survey to transport authorities in European cities about their use or experience with geofencing, as well as perceived challenges. The report from this work has also been publicly published. This work has led to some overall key cases that are being worked on in order to provide a systemic understanding of geofencing, for example how geofencing can contribute to private cars having lower emissions, but also cases that are being worked on concretely in the partner cities, including geofencing for optimizing parking for escooters, and speed regulation for the municipality's health transport with passenger cars. Collectively, the findings from the project will contribute to an implementation guide that will be of help to European cities in their decision-making, and further work will be done on how this can be integrated into Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans and other leading documents of cities.

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, Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) and Sustainable Urban Logistics Plans (SULPs).

Funding scheme:

TRANSPORT-Transport 2025