Product Service System Innovation in the Smart City

Product service systems (PSS) may usefully form part of the mix of innovations necessary to move society toward more sustainable futures. However, despite such potential, PSS implementation is highly uneven and limited. Drawing on an alternate socio-technical perspective of innovation, this paper provides fresh insights, on among other things the role of context in PSS innovation, to address this issue. Case study research is presented focusing on a use orientated PSS in an urban environment: the Copenhagen city bike scheme. The paper shows that PSS innovation is a situated complex process, shaped by actors and knowledge from other locales. It argues that further research is needed to investigate how actors interests shape PSS innovation. It recommends that institutional spaces should be provided in governance landscapes associated with urban environments to enable legitimate PSS concepts to co-evolve in light of locally articulated sustainability principles and priorities

Urban bicycles renting systems: Modelling and optimization using nature-inspired search methods

Urban Bicycles Renting Systems (UBRS) are becoming a common and useful component in growing modern cities. For an efficient management and support, the UBRS infrastructure requires the optimation of vehicle routes connecting several bicycle base stations and storage centers. In this study, we model this real-world optimization problem as a capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) with multiple depots and the simultaneous need for pickup and delivery at each base station location. Based on the VRP model specification, two nature-inspired computational techniques, evolutionary algorithms and ant colony systems, are presented and their performance in tackling the UBRS problem is investigated. In the evolutionary approach, individuals are encoded as permutations of base stations and then translated to a set of routes subject to the constraints related to vehicle capacity and node demands. In the ant-based approach, ants build complete solutions formed of several subtours servicing a subset of base stations using a single vehicle based on both apriori (the attractiveness of a move based on the known distance or other factors) and aposteriori (pheromone levels accumulated on visited edges) knowledge. Both algorithms are engaged for the UBRS problem using real data from the cities of Barcelona and Valencia. Computational experiments for several scenarios support a good performance of both population-based search methods. Comparative results indicate that better solutions are obtained on the average by the ant colony system approach for both considered cities

Urban bicycles renting systems: Modelling and optimization using nature-inspired search methods

Urban Bicycles Renting Systems (UBRS) are becoming a common and useful component in growing modern cities. For an efficient management and support, the UBRS infrastructure requires the optimation of vehicle routes connecting several bicycle base stations and storage centers. In this study, we model this real-world optimization problem as a capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) with multiple depots and the simultaneous need for pickup and delivery at each base station location. Based on the VRP model specification, two nature-inspired computational techniques, evolutionary algorithms and ant colony systems, are presented and their performance in tackling the UBRS problem is investigated. In the evolutionary approach, individuals are encoded as permutations of base stations and then translated to a set of routes subject to the constraints related to vehicle capacity and node demands. In the ant-based approach, ants build complete solutions formed of several subtours servicing a subset of base stations using a single vehicle based on both apriori (the attractiveness of a move based on the known distance or other factors) and aposteriori (pheromone levels accumulated on visited edges) knowledge. Both algorithms are engaged for the UBRS problem using real data from the cities of Barcelona and Valencia. Computational experiments for several scenarios support a good performance of both population-based search methods. Comparative results indicate that better solutions are obtained on the average by the ant colony system approach for both considered cities

Hybrid Economies in Hybrid Cities built on Manufacturing, Networks, and Design.

The concept of networks will be analyzed through a Hybrid Economy model, looking at new organizational forms and new multi-actor collaborations; Evolutionary Economic Geography defines these as interested in both social and financial returns, and it identifies institutions as particularly relevant in the success of these new enterprises. Six main factors that define the hybridity of a business and an enterprise have been identified: Offer; Goals and impacts; Founders composition; Team/Staff composition; (Relationship with) customers. To test this approach, we decided to analyze qualitative data collected during a research project which involved two sister cities: Milano and Chicago. The paper will focus on the Milanese case study, which considered manufacturing activities, including both 4.0 manufacturing and more traditional craftmanship activities. We will define different forms of networks that can favor the hybridity of businesses and the roles that design can play. The research project was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic spread worldwide; however, it is relevant to notice how reflections on the future of our cities were already part of policies and planning programs. The pandemic made evident the importance of local (and hyper-local) networks and also accelerated intervention processes devoted to favoring the creation of self-sustaining neighborhoods

Policy, users and discourses: examples from bikeshare programs in (Kolkata) India and (Manila) Philippines

This paper examines two bikeshare programs implemented in two Global South cities, examining the role of users in promoting sustainable transport. To explore the sustainability of smart cycling, we argue that it is important to understand the prevailing administrative and socio-institutional practices within a given context. For the effective stabilisation of smart regimes, harmony between the administrative and socio-institutional practices must be established. In this context, we introduce a complementary approach to understanding transitions. Maintenance of political commitments and institutional support are crucial for cycling success, not incidental footloose initiatives. We explore two case studies in the context of the Global South, in the first one top-down policies and planning initiatives dictate the directions of transitions by enabling or constraining user routines. In the second one, citizens take control to resolve a transport deficit by initiating and driving a very bottom-up user-led transition narrative. We propose a framework to cater to the unique political, cultural and smart discourses of the Global South and the role of users in conjunction with the administrative and socio-institutional practices around them. Investigating both the bikeshare cases through the lens of this framework provides unique insights extending our knowledge beyond the built environment features of sustainable planning initiatives. Our findings reveal the complex narratives that are in play in developing nations and conclude that understanding and realising cycling transitions in southern megacities require a different approach compared to the Global North

Fluid transitions to more sustainable product service systems

While Product Service Systems (PSS) are not inherently sustainable, they may form part of the mix of innovations that contribute to the development of more sustainable futures. However, whether the current trajectory of PSS research, with its emphasis on universal frameworks and standardisation adequately reflects and builds upon PSS diversity revealed by case study research may be questioned. Opportunities for transition to more sustainable PSS may be lost. In response, this paper draws on sustainable architecture to propose fluid transitions to more sustainable PSS: to PSS design practices that embrace diversity and enable specific PSS to be developed which address contextual interpretations of sustainability challenges. The core ideas of the PSS design are critically engaged in light of the principles and priorities of fluid transitions. Research directions to support fluid transitions to more sustainable PSS design practices are then explicated

Contested Niche Innovations in Transport: Experiences from the Inter-comunal Bicycle Sharing System in Santiago de Chile, 2011-2017

Significant new technological developments in transport are already part of our urban landscape, helped by trends in the globalisation of economic activities. Acknowledging that technology is a facilitator of key changes in urban mobility, this thesis examines the institutional context in which a new transport technology is deployed, highlighting concerns not only about possible failures of an ‘enabling state’, but also about the ‘enabling environment’ as a central policy issue. This perspective provides a suitable space to further discuss the increasing governance hybridity in deploying new technologies in transport, acknowledging that the balance of power appears to be shifting. This research seeks to analyse the role of decision-making processes in triggering transformative adaptations that account for a mobility justice transition towards more equitable and inclusive mobility landscapes. Empirically, the thesis presents a case study promoting utility cycling via the deployment of an inter-comunal Bicycle Sharing Scheme, comprising 14 comunas in Santiago, Chile’s capital city, a fragmented metropolitan area with high socio-spatial inequalities. This research approach combines quantitative and qualitative methods of data gathering and analysis. A survey of 343 current bike-hire users at the busiest stations in order to gauge the perceived benefits of such deployment was complemented by interviews with key decision-makers and direct observations of operational logistics in the field. Business model innovation and public tendering processes provided valuable insights into the decision-making process as a subject of analysis. Findings suggest that a mobility justice transition is a relational matter. Indeed, inter-governmental agreements and collaborative actions were crucial in challenging patterns of socio-spatial inequality and proved to be a transformative strategy for change. However, prospects for a radical transition towards greater mobility justice are mixed. In conclusion, partnerships supporting niche-innovations operate within norms, values and practices, which are socially and culturally conditioned, and systematically shaped by the actions of society. Unfolding this rationale and ‘working through’ tensions and synergies towards the search for a common interest on the basis of transparency, collaboration, trust and deliberation, there is potential for setting out a mobility justice transition pathway

Toward Sustainability: Bike-Sharing Systems Design, Simulation and Management

The goal of this Special Issue is to discuss new challenges in the simulation and management problems of both traditional and innovative bike-sharing systems, to ultimately encourage the competitiveness and attractiveness of BSSs, and contribute to the further promotion of sustainable mobility. We have selected thirteen papers for publication in this Special Issue

A Study of the Static Bicycle Reposition Problem with a Single Vehicle

The Bicycle Sharing System (BSS), a public service system operated by the government or a private company, provides the convenient use of a bicycle as a temporary method of transportation. More specifically, this system allows people to rent a bike from one location, use it for a short time period and then return it to either to the same or a different location for an inexpensive fee. With the development of IT technology in the 1990s, it became possible to balance the bicycle inventory among the various destinations. In fact, a critical aspect to maintaining a satisfactory BSS is effectively rebalancing bicycle inventory across the various stations. In this research, we focus on the static bicycle repositioning problem with a single vehicle which is abstracted from the operation issue in the bicycle sharing system. The mathematical model for the static bicycle reposition problem had been created and several variations had been analyzed. This research starts to solve the problem from a very restrictive and constrained model and relaxes the constraints step by step to approach the real world case scenario. Several realistic assumptions have been considered in our research, such as a limited working time horizon, multiple visit limitation for the same station, multiple trips used for the vehicle, etc. In this research, we use the variable neighborhood search heuristic algorithm as the basic structure to find the solution for the static bicycle reposition problem. The numeric results indicate that our algorithms can provide good quality result within short solving time. By solving such a problem well, in comparison to benchmark algorithms, this research provides a starting place for dynamic bicycle repositioning and multiple vehicle repositioning