Feasibility of Innovative Smart Mobility Solutions for Vaasa – A Case Study of EU Horizon 2020 IRIS Project

The primary purpose of this thesis is to examine the innovative smart mobility, and second life battery solutions, represented in the City of Vaasa’s Horizon 2020 IRIS Smart Cities Replication plan. The objective is to find certitude of the Lighthouse cities’ demonstration validity and feasibility concerning the City of Vaasa’s replication plan. Additionally, the aim is to study the solutions’ potential to be implemented in Vaasa, and the benefit concerning the city’s general plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2030. The secondary object is to examine the solutions’ compatibility with the IRIS Lighthouse cities’ demonstrations and gathered experiences, and with the recent plans and projects executed in Vaasa related to smart and sustainable mobility solutions. This thesis was commissioned by the City of Vaasa. European Union launched 2014 the Horizon 2020 program, aiming to encourage EU nations and their cities to take steps to reach carbon neutrality via projects promoting Smart City development. Horizon 2020’s aim is to battle climate change by encouraging cities to become more sustainable. By promoting innovative, efficient, far-reaching and replicable solutions, from the fields of smart energy production and consumption, traffic and mobility, information communication technology, and citizen engagement, the objective can be achieved. IRIS Smart City project (Integrated and Replicable solutions for co-creation in Sustainable cities) was launched in 2017. The project consists of three Lighthouse cities and four follower cities. Vaasa has been part of the project since 2017 as a follower city. The IRIS project’s solutions are first to be studied and demonstrated by the Lighthouse cities and then to be replicated by the follower cities. A replication plan is required to examine and present the feasibility and validity of the integrated solutions, to secure their implementation process. The results of this thesis indicate that the innovative smart mobility solutions, including V2G and 2nd life battery schemes presented in the City of Vaasa’s replication plan, are relevant to the City of Vaasa, by being compatible with the city’s climate and decarbonization goals and related sustainable mobility plans and projects executed in Vaasa in the past few years. These solutions play significant role in the Lighthouse ciBes’ demonstrations, thus showing great potential for utilization in the City of Vaasa’s infrastructure, mobility and smart grid development plans. The solutions can advance Mobility as a Service concept, electric vehicle utilization development, and aid in decarbonization, enhancing energy efficiency, creating new businesses and services, and improving the attractiveness of the city

Feasibility of Innovative Smart Mobility Solutions : A Case Study for Vaasa

The global trend of urbanization and growing environmental awareness have risen concerns and demands to develop cities to become smarter. There is a grave need for ambitious sustainability strategies and projects, which can aid cities intelligently and comprehensively in this task. European Union (EU) launched 2014 the Horizon 2020 program (aka Horizon Europe), aiming to encourage the EU nations and their cities to take action to reach carbon neutrality through projects striving to smart city development. By promoting innovative, efficient, far-reaching, and replicable solutions, from the fields of smart energy production and consumption, traffic and mobility, digitalization and information communication technology, and citizen engagement, the objectives of the smart city strategies can be achieved. Horizon 2020 funded IRIS Smart Cities project was launched in 2017. One of the follower cities in the project has been the City of Vaasa in Finland. Vaasa’s climate objective is to reach carbon neutrality by 2030. In order to achieve this goal, the city has taken several decisive measures to enhance de-carbonization during recent years. One essential target for de-carbonization activities has been traffic and mobility. The primary purpose of the research conducted was to study the smart mobility, vehicle-to-grid (V2G), and second life battery solutions in the IRIS Smart Cities project, demonstrated first by the Lighthouse cities and then to be replicated in the City of Vaasa. The aim was to study which importance and prioritization these particular integrated solutions would receive in the City of Vaasa’s replication plan led by the City of Vaasa’s IRIS project task team of 12 experts, with the contribution of the key partners and stakeholders. Additionally, the aim was to study the potential of the integrated solutions in question to be eventually implemented in the Vaasa environment, and the benefit for the city’s ultimate strategy to reach carbon neutrality by 2030. The secondary object was to study the solutions’ compatibility with the IRIS lighthouse cities’ demonstrations and gathered joined experiences concerning the smart and sustainable mobility and vehicle-to-grid solutions, and utilization of 2nd life batteries. The results of the research indicated, that the innovative smart mobility solutions, including vehicle-to-grid and second life battery schemes, are highly relevant not only to the IRIS Lighthouse cities, but they also present good potential for the City of Vaasa in the long run, being compatible with the city’s climate and de-carbonization goals.© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Ruoppaussedimenttien käyttö maa- ja infrarakentamisessa

Tämän opinnäytetyön ensisijainen tarkoitus oli selvittää ruoppaussedimenttien hyötykäyttömahdollisuudet eri maa- ja infrarakentamiskohteissa sekä mitä eri käsittelytekniikoita sedimenttien hyödyntäminen vaatii. Lisäksi selvitettiin, mik-si ruoppaussedimenttejä tulisi ylipäätään hyödyntää ja mitkä käytännön ja talou-delliset mahdollisuudet ja haasteet siihen liittyy. Suomessa on runsaan 10 vuoden aikana herännyt kiinnostus käyttää uusiomateri-aaleja ja jätteitä maa- ja infrarakentamisessa. Valtioneuvoston ja ympäristöministeriön MARA- ja MASA-asetukset edesauttavat em. materiaalien lupakäytäntöä ja hyödyntämistä rakennusmateriaaleina. Tarkoituksena on kiertotalouden ja kestävän kehityksen tukeminen vähentämällä neitseellisiä maa- ja kiviaineksia. Ruoppaussedimentit on aikaisemmin nähty käyttökelvottomana jätteenä. Tämä opinnäytetyön tulokset osoittavat, että ruoppaussedimentit ovat laajalti käytössä maa- ja infrarakentamisessa ympäri maailmaa ja niiden käsittelykeinot, tutkimus- ja tuotekehittelytyö sekä taloudellinen merkitys on kehittynyttä. Sama on mahdollista myös Suomessa. Sedimenttien käyttö edellyttävät käsittelytoimia, resursseja ja käyttökohteen vaatimusten tuntemista sekä suunnitelmallisuutta, tutkimustyön ja käytännön lisäämistä, tiedottamista, toimivaa yhteistyötä sidosryhmien välillä ja muutosta negatiivisissa asenteissa ruoppaussedimenttien käyttöä kohtaan. Tämän opinnäytetyön tilaajana toimi Vaasan kaupunki.The primary purpose of this thesis was to examine the utilization possibilities of dredged materials in earthwork and infrastructural building purposes and what different processing techniques are required. Secondary function was to clarify the laws and decrees concerning the dredged materials, is the utilization benefi-cial economically and what are the possibilities and challenges regarding the uti-lization. There has been a growing interest in using recycled materials and construction waste beneficially in earthwork and infrastructural building purposes in Finland for the past 10 years. The so-called MARA and MASA decrees by the Finnish government ease the permission policy and further the ways to exploit dredged materials. The goal is to enhance the circular economy and sustainable develop-ment by reducing the usage of virgin soil or aggregate materials. Dredged materials have previously been regarded as useless waste in Finland. The results of this thesis show, that dredged materials have been and are widely used in earthwork and infrastructural building purposes around the world and their processing techniques, research & product development and business mod-els involved are well developed. All this is possible also in Finland. The utiliza-tion of dredged materials requires processing and knowledge about the materi-als’ technical qualities. Furthermore, one needs to be familiar with the project’s requirements, work systematically, increase research and practice, put emphasis on communication and finally break the existing negative attitudes towards put-ting dredged materials into good use. This thesis was commissioned by the city of Vaasa