Criteria for mobility

Designing a circular urban mobility system

Public procurement can also be a tool to enable a circular mobility system. Your city government can implement various schemes to support its climate targets, such as procuring zero-emission vehicles and sharing services for publicly owned vehicle fleets. You can also promote the switch to an integrated, multimodal, on-demand mobility system. Such an urban mobility system could cut the embodied emissions in vehicles by 70% globally by 2050 compared to a baseline scenario.

By planning for compact city development, your city government can reduce travel and freight distances and promote effective logistics and resource flows. For the urban infrastructure that supports mobility such as roads and bridges, your city planners can incentivise the use of renewable, reusable, and secondary raw materials.

Questions to consider:

• Can you procure: + Infrastructure for mobility that is built with new low carbon, circular construction techniques? + Infrastructure for mobility that reduces waste and the need for maintenance and repair? + The use of vehicles as an alternative to purchase? (e.g. through leasing or sharing schemes?) + Low emission vehicles such as electric vehicles? + Infrastructure that supports zero-emission transport vehicles? + Recycled or locally sourced materials?

• Urban mobility services that focus on users’ transport needs? + The use of vehicles? (e.g. through leasing or sharing schemes?) + Low emission vehicles such as electric vehicles? + Infrastructure that supports zero-emission transport vehicles? + Recycled or locally sourced materials? + Infrastructure for mobility that is built with new low carbon, circular construction techniques? + Infrastructure for mobility that reduces waste and the need for maintenance and repair?

• Can the contracts include services such as refurbishment and repair to extend material use cycles?

• Can you use Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) as a price criterion?

Examples

1) In 2003, the City of Medellín introduced the Metrocable, a cable car system similar to those used in ski stations as a transportation solution for poor neighborhoods sprawling on steep slopes. Four lines were installed and are now used by an average of 70,000 passengers per day. The Metrocable system joins up with other transportation networks, including the pre-existing metro, a new fleet of buses (articulated for greater capacity), and a rubber-tire tram system introduced at the end of 2015.

2) In 2017, Shenzhen became the first city in the world to electrify all of its public buses. With over 16,000 electric buses on its roads, the city aims to reduce noise pollution and improve air quality. Similarly, the City of San Jose acquired in 2019 a fleet of 10 battery-electric, zero-emission buses for its international airport. The electric bus fleet is anticipated to reduce ozone emissions by 1.1 tons over a 10-year period, which is the equivalent of 50 gas-powered passenger vehicles taken off the roads.

3) The City of Porto replaced 70% of the municipal fleet with electric vehicles - contracted through a leasing model - and developed an internal “uber-like” service that serves different departments, taking employees across the city for meetings and other external services in a more optimised way. By 2020, the fleet had already traveled a total of 4 million kilometres, contributing significantly to the decarbonisation strategy of the city. Similarly, the City of Pittsburgh acquired 26 electric vehicles with a carbon reduction target of 75% per vehicle in 2020.

Resource

• The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s factsheet on mobility identifies opportunities for cities to embed circular principles in the transport system.

• The EU GPP criteria for Road Transport outlines voluntary criteria designed to make it easier for public authorities to purchase goods, services and works with reduced environmental impacts.