In ancient Greece, leaders travelled on foot or by horse to the city of Delphi to ask an oracle what the future might hold. Their questions are lost to history; ours are not.
Today, cities want to know which sustainable mobility interventions will truly work, not only in terms of efficiency and investment, but also in terms of inclusion and public space planning in a holistic approach. And for answers, they increasingly turn to a modern source of wisdom: data and artificial intelligence.
Go wisdom
What if a cycle lane were extended by another five kilometres to reach a university campus? What if zero-emission zones expanded beyond the city centre? What interventions would motivate daily commuters to switch from private car to public transport when reaching their workplace in the morning? How can the city enhance traffic safety in areas with a high volume of van deliveries?
The future is uncertain. Cities are anthills where people with different values, lived experiences, and daily challenges coexist, and it is not always easy to cater to them all. But what if cities could assess the impact on their policies through the lens of different stakeholders and citizen groups?
Through the GOLIA project, three partner cities – Pilsen, Florence and Antwerp- will be able to explore predictions and simulations based on machine learning, helping them assess which sustainable mobility plans from cycle networks and public transport combinations to low-emission zones are feasible, effective, and inclusive.
For example, it will help Pilsen address the challenge of strong commuting patterns towards the city, which relies on good public transport infrastructure but has high car use. “It’s difficult to change habits,” says Jaroslava Kypetová, Head of Grants and Integrated Territorial Investments Department at the city of Pilsen. It will also help Florence, which, “as a tourist city, faces a high flow of mobility,” as Elena Aversa, Technical Officer at Fundraising and EU projects Office at the city of Florence, stressed.
Replicability, replicability, replicability
But what do a person with a disability in Pilsen, a retired teacher in Florence, and a Turkish woman in Antwerp have in common? All three risk being overlooked by conventional urban mobility solutions.
But Pilsen, Florence and Antwerp aim to make sure that sustainable mobility plans do not leave people behind, especially vulnerable groups. The three cities are working alongside researchers, organisations and citizens to embed equity into their mobility planning platforms and digital assets during the project, and to create successful solutions transferable from one city to another.
At the heart of this process sits the Social Optimum Mobility Index, or SOMI. Rather than asking only whether a mobility measure is fast, cheap or technically efficient, SOMI asks a broader and more human question: who does this mobility system actually work for?
The index for inclusion
The SOMI shifts the focus away from mobility as a purely economic function toward mobility as a fundamental right that supports wellbeing, health and social inclusion. In short, while traditional mobility data is centred on standard traffic models (usually measuring private vehicles’ elements such as speed or congestion), GOLIA will measure people’s transport needs.
“Consider a policy that slows down traffic,” explains Vasileios Giannoudis, Research Associate at the Hellenic Institute of Transport. “ To a commuter, that might look like a loss of availability (less road space), but to a parent, that is a victory for safety. The software knows the physics, but it doesn’t know the values. So, by ranking pillars like safety, accessibility, and affordability for different personas based on what is more important to them, we are effectively teaching the tool ‘who cares about what’, turning raw data into a measure of human well-being.”
To do so, the SOMI puts together data not only from mobility, but also from implications on health, urbanism, tourism, etc. As Marisa Meta, Project Coordinator of GOLIA from Fit Consulting, puts it, the SOMI will “make sure all users have equitable access to mobility systems, as mobility planning tends to ignore vulnerable groups such as persons with disabilities or migrant communities.”
Unlike static indicators, SOMI is designed as a dynamic, scenario-based tool. Cities can test different policy choices from street redesigns to regulatory changes, and explore how these decisions might affect different groups of users over time, as Giannoudis explains.
For example, Antwerp will use the index to upgrade the Smart Ways to Antwerp digital tool for vulnerable groups. “The app will work for them, but first we need to know what they’re looking for,” explains Michiel Penne, coordinator Smart Ways to Antwerp at the City of Antwerp.
And “after you implemented it,” explains Andrea Baldassari, Researcher from SUPSI in charge of the creation of the data tools that will embed SOMI into the digital assets of partner cities, “you can monitor the situation, and check if the actual SOMI has increased as predicted.” Because once data is fed into the model, it helps refine the SOMI, enabling cities to adapt policies to their own contexts while learning from others.
Beyond data
Behind the scenes, GOLIA’s digital tools (from data collection and visualisation to knowledge-sharing dashboards) help cities connect information that is usually scattered across departments and governance levels.
“The fragmentation of mobility data and siloed decision-making, which prevents holistic urban planning, is a key challenge,” says Matteo Salani, Senior Researcher at SUPSI-ISIN.
But data and indices alone are not enough, even when coming from different departments. That’s why GOLIA places strong emphasis on citizen participation. Through structured, social-science-led engagement processes using methods such as storytelling, serious games and transition management, cities involve citizens and stakeholders, especially those often excluded from decision-making, in shaping long-term mobility visions.
“We believe that a participatory approach is the best way to address complex sustainability transitions within transport and mobility,” says Viola Nistri, Technical Officer at the Mobility Department at the city of Florence. “Our participation process is built on intergenerational and just participation, which aims to include disadvantaged or vulnerable categories that are typically underrepresented.”
The participatory approach ‘Florence for Climate’, already in place as part of the EU Mission city towards neutrality path, will remain active and is expected to involve around 150 participants.
Ask, and you’ll get answers
The aim is not to deliver one perfect solution, but to create a governance approach that cities across Europe can adapt to their own context. By testing its methodology in Pilsen, Florence and Antwerp, and involving follower cities to assess replication potential, GOLIA explores how sustainable, inclusive mobility policies can travel from one place to another.
The oracle at Delphi offered cryptic answers, open to interpretation. GOLIA offers something different: evidence-based insight, shaped by data, technology and citizens themselves.
The future of urban mobility may still be uncertain, but cities will no longer have to face it without guidance.
