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PILOT: Bilbao (ES); USE CASE: Assessment of IWW infrastructure for last-mile delivery

CONTEXT AND
CHARACTERITICS OF PILOT

Bilbao metropolitan area (pop. 950,000) is divided by Nervion River, being the Rontegi bridge the unique connection of both riversides and the most congested road in the city (5.000-10.000 veh./day, 12-18 km/h average speed). In the past, part of this river was an IWW of almost 14km that fed an inland maritime river port for iron, steel, metallurgical and shipyards industries. However, currently this river is underused despite it has a great potential: the “Zorrozaurre” island (top-left) would be a space for living and working, while the riverbanks represent a space for sustainable mobility (pedestrian zone, cycle lanes and tram) connected to the city centre, the municipal market and the low emission zones in the commercial area. 

Therefore, the city plans to revitalise this IWW for transport of goods and people. With this IWW re-activation, it is expected to: (i) reduce emissions and road traffic pressure in city, (ii) avoid future traffic bottlenecks in Zorrozaurre access points, (iii) facilitate crossing the river by multiple points rather than the overcrowded bridges, (iv) promote modal shift by leveraging multimodality & sustainable last-mile mobility (particularly in the freight delivery), and (iv) reduce road/bridge maintenance costs.

Scope (What will be analysed/assessed/evaluated by MITHOS? What is ultimately expected to be obtained?)

Firstly, CEIT/MLC/BILBAO will analyse the current demand for mobility in the city (especially for last-mile delivery), as well as the forecast of future demand generated by Zorrozaurre. Then, KEITA will define the possibilities of the network for connection with cycle lines and CEIT will simulate traffic flows for a new IWW with SUMO. This heterogeneous data will be processed and then interconnected in MITHOS to obtain the design options for multimodal freight transport using the river, connected to cycle paths and public transport (tram/bus), showing: optimal locations of lockers and loading/unloading points, reduction of travel times and road traffic, operating costs, emissions, energy consumption, fossil fuels, and expected modal shift.

Data / tools needed

Bilbao city data19; Roads, parking slots and cycle lanes mapping; Public transport real time data and routes; Bike sharing characteristics; Mobility demand; Infrastructure characteristics (specially for last mile delivery operation); Real-time traffic collected with cameras; among others.

MITHOS validation in use case

  1. KPI Efficiency: time lost per vehicle per km. Baseline: Derived from existing transport operators in MLC. Target: +30%
  2. KPI operating costs: transport operation costs. Baseline: Derived from existing transport operators in MLC. Target: -20%
  3. KPI fossil fuel consumption. Baseline: Obtained from the city’s existing mobility demand model. Target: -50%;
  4. [4] KPI infrastructure failure probability. Baseline: Data from maintenance service. Target: -20%
  5. KPI emissions. Baseline: Obtained from the existing mobility demand model of the city and the maintenance services. Target: -50% justified in the specific zone
  6. KPI nº of accidents. N/A.

Stakeholders and end users involved in the use case

Bilbao council will provide access to traffic dataset and infrastructure digital twin. Bilbao Port Authority oversees the management of boat traffic on the river, and will provide boat speed limits, navigation permits, etc. On the other hand, logistics operators (represented by MLC) have the vision of the last mile transport operations and will be involved in the defined workshops to support the implementation of MITHOS in this pilot.