Anne Schön, THINGS (Editor) et al.

Overview

The ELABORATOR Evaluation Plan (Deliverable D2.2) provides a structured framework for measuring and monitoring the environmental, social, and safety impacts of mobility interventions across the project's 12 Living Labs. Developed under Work Package 2 and funded through the EU Horizon Europe programme, it serves as one of the project's Key Exploitable Results. The plan supports both the project team and city partners in designing robust, evidence-based evaluations of their local interventions. It is equally useful for practitioners and policymakers looking to establish evaluation processes in sustainable urban mobility projects.

Highlights

The document is organized into five parts. Part 1 sets out the project-wide objectives and expected outcomes across five dimensions: Mobility Planning, Connected and Smart Mobility, Safety, Environment, and Social. These include targets such as a minimum 5% increase in the use of zero-emission transport modes, a 10% reduction in private car use, and a 10% estimated reduction in emissions across all Living Labs. The framework also integrates the 19 Sustainable Urban Mobility Indicators (SUMIs) as benchmarking tools.

Part 2 explains how each Living Lab should develop its own evaluation plan. This follows a structured process: describing the intervention, defining short-, medium-, and long-term impacts using a Theory of Change model, selecting relevant indicators, and prioritising activities based on expected impact and available resources. Cities are guided to choose indicators from five thematic dimensions, with some mandatory for all Living Labs and others selected based on the nature of the specific intervention.

Part 3 details the impact evaluation methodologies available for environmental, social, and safety assessment. These range from subjective methods such as surveys, interviews, workshops, and focus groups, to objective approaches including traffic counts, counting sensors, floating car data, parking counts, and simulation software. The plan is explicit about the strengths and limitations of each method and which deliverables they link to within the broader ELABORATOR framework.

Parts 4 and 5 provide a practical template for cities to complete their individual evaluation plans, along with detailed guidance on when, where, and how to collect data. Annexes covering individual city evaluation plans for all 12 Living Labs (Copenhagen, Helsinki, Ioannina, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Krusevac, Liberec, Lund, Milan, Split, Trikala, Velenje, and Zaragoza) are included, alongside technical annexes on traffic counting, speed measurement, environmental data, and the Safety/Accessibility/Environment Rating System.

Practical implementation

The framework is designed to be replicable and adaptable. Cities are not required to apply a single fixed methodology; instead, they select the approach that fits their intervention type, available resources, and local conditions. The dual top-down and bottom-up approach allows project-wide outcome tracking while respecting the diversity of interventions across different urban contexts. For city teams and project partners working on similar living lab structures, this plan provides a ready-to-use reference for structuring evaluation from the earliest stages of implementation through to long-term impact assessment.