Sustainable Urban Transitions Lab (SUT Lab) – Pilot Phase

The Sustainable Urban Transitions Lab is a collaborative initiative between Bolt and ETH Zürich, designed to foster sustainable urban mobility planning in line with Bolt’s mission of creating “cities for people, not cars.” The pilot phase of the lab aims to develop innovative, data-driven solutions that can help cities transition from private car use towards more sustainable mobility options, including public transport, ride-hailing, ride-sharing, active mobility and (shared) micromobility. The lab will integrate citizen science, sensor data, open source data, and urban modelling to provide evidence-based planning for a sustainable multimodal mobility system.

During the pilot phase, the lab will focus on Seville (Spain), a city facing challenges in expanding its public transport network, improving multimodal connectivity, and ensuring safer micromobility. While the city’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) aims to reduce private car use and enhance greener modes, Seville currently has limited mass transit options, with only one metro line. Planned expansions – including metro, trams, and bus rapid transit – offer opportunities to transform mobility, but require careful evaluation to ensure efficiency, integration, and public acceptance. The lab will study travel behaviour across different user groups to inform mobility planning, analyse micromobility safety using sensor data, and simulate and assess multimodality improvements in connection with mass transit expansions. The findings will support the development of sustainable urban mobility plans, optimise multimodal connections, and estimate the economic and environmental benefits of these interventions. Seville’s case will serve as a model for cities in Southern Europe and beyond, helping to accelerate sustainable urban mobility transitions.

The lab will also support Hannover in refining its mobility strategy by providing data-driven insights into travel patterns, infrastructure optimisation, and multimodal integration. Through spatiotemporal travel behaviour analysis, we will investigate how different demographic groups use micromobility and public transport, identifying key barriers and opportunities for improved accessibility. By leveraging computational modelling and empirical data, this research will inform decision-making, support investment prioritisation, and contribute to the city’s transition towards a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient urban mobility system. Over the first 12 months, the lab will deliver tangible solutions for both cities through data-driven assessments of sustainable mobility interventions, emphasising shared mobility and its integration with multimodal networks. While the lab will initially focus on the specific mobility problems and contexts of the cities of Seville and Hannover, the long-term vision of the lab is to produce methods and tools that are replicable and scalable to multiple city archetypes. By the end of this pilot phase, the lab aims to develop a prototype for scalable, sustainable urban mobility planning and pave the way for future phases where the lab can reach a broader global impact in the wide array of cities where Bolt operates.

This is a common project of the chairs of Prof. Bryan Adey, Infrastructure Management (IM) Group and Prof. Eva Heinen, Transportation and Mobility Planning (TMP) Group

Participants

Prof. Bryan T. Adey, Prof. Eva Heinen, Orlando Roman, Katja Schimohr, Xuan He, Grace Kagho, David Zani

Partners

ETH Zürich Infrastructure Management (IM) Group, ETH Zürich Transportation and Mobility Planning (TMP) Group, Bolt, Ayuntamiento de Sevilla, City of Hannover

Project timeframe

2025 – 2027

Project website