NICHES brochures available for download now!

The final results of the NICHES project are now available. These results are compiled in a series of brochures drafted by the NICHES consortium members and reviewed by experts in the field from across Europe.

The reports include horizontal reports addressing urban transport innovation issues as well as policy notes dedicated to NICHES Innovative Concepts.

If you wish to receive the paper version of any of these reports, please return the completed request form to Polis, the NICHES coordinator.

Download the reports here:

1) Innovative Urban Transport Concepts

This publication wants to help urban transport decision makers and practitioners to find innovations that could be applied in their cities, by providing an overview of some of the most promising innovative urban transport concepts. It includes the results of the practical research carried out, i.e. a detailed description of the NICHES Innovative Urban Transport Concepts.

These are innovative urban transport measures that have proven to be successful in (mostly) European cities. NICHES has explored twelve Innovative Concepts, selected by European urban transport experts, in order to encourage their uptake in different urban contexts.

2) Encouraging Urban Transport Innovation on the Local Level - Policy Recommendations

This report wants to help decision makers and technical staff to stimulate innovative transport and mobility solutions in their cities and regions.

This also requires taking into account new trends and challenges that constantly arise for cities and regions in Europe. This brochure presents selected examples of such trends and highlights the need for action.

NICHES Concepts are at the forefront of urban transport innovation and they are promising solutions that can help to address existing and upcoming challenges. A vision 2020 illustrates the potential of the NICHES Concepts to contribute to a more sustainable urban transport system and an improved quality of life in urban areas.

This publication addresses the challenge to improve general conditions for enhancing the uptake of transport innovations, considering a range of policy issues in four key areas, where barriers are often found on the local and regional level to make a real step towards a more sustainable urban transport system. These areas are:

Financial & Economic Issues

Public Support/ Users & Awareness

Interorganisational Cooperation & Networks

Legal, Regulatory & Administrative Issues

Policy recommendations are proposed in these four fields. They focus on what should be put forward on local agendas to facilitate the uptake of NICHES Concepts and to enhance the development and implementation of local transport innovations in general.

3) Policy notes

12 policy notes related to the 12 NICHES Innovative Concepts have been produced within NICHES. In each of the policy note the costs and benefits, the stakeholders to be involved, the users to whom the initiative should be addressed, and the key steps for implementation are described. In addition contact details of several experts involved in the implementation of these concepts is provided.

The 12 NICHES Innovative Concepts were defined within 4 key thematic areas, namely:

New Seamless Mobility Services

Urban Lift-sharing Public Bicycles Call-a-bus

Services Services

Innovative Approaches in City Logistics

Space Management Inner-city Alternative Solutions

for Urban Delivery Night Delivery for Home Delivery

New Non-polluting and Energy-efficient Vehicles

Policy Strategy Biogas in Joint Procurement

for Clean Vehicles Captive Fleets of Clean Vehicles

Innovative Demand Management Strategies

Transportation Road Pricing Schemes City-wide

Management Campaigns

Associations (TMAs)

4) Guide to Innovative Urban Transport Strategies

This guide wants to help urban transport decision makers and practitioners to find innovations that could be applied in their cities, by providing a description of the combinations of NICHES Concepts to develop integrated urban transport strategies (NICHES Strategies). As such, it is illustrated how the integration of Innovative Concepts can contribute to the success of their implementation, as it allows addressing different aspects (e.g. technological, financial, public acceptance) of the transport system, or combining measures that contribute to the same policy objectives.

5) Clean Vehicles and Alternative Fuels - Trends and Visions

This publication aims to provide an overview of the existing clean vehicle technology and fuels, their use and production.

In addition to the current state of development and use of clean vehicles and fuels it also offers an overview of the trends for the future in Europe, and an outlook to the USA and three emerging countries (China, Brazil and India).

6) Facilitating Urban Transport Innovation on the European Level - Research and Policy Recommendations

This publication is particularly directed towards EU level decision makers and the European research community in the field of urban transport. The NICHES research recommendations want to give an input to the discussion on upcoming EU funded research activities. A focus of this brochure is the identification of research gaps in the field of urban transport innovations. Based on the identified research gaps NICHES developed key research recommendations addressing research topics, perspectives and formats. Besides the elaboration of research recommendations, this report also highlights several policy recommendations to the EU level.

What is NICHES?

Over the last few years a wide range of innovative concepts for making urban transport more efficient, competitive and sustainable have been developed in Europe. However, the full deployment and mainstreaming of those innovative concepts has not taken place.

The mission of NICHES (New and Innovative Concepts for Helping European transport Sustainability) is to stimulate a wide debate on innovative urban transport and mobility between relevant stakeholders from different sectors and disciplines across Europe.

NICHES promotes the most promising new concepts, initiatives and projects, moving them from their current niche position to a mainstream urban transport policy application.

NICHES is a project supported by the European Commission, DG Research, under the 6th Framework Programme.

Download the NICHES leaflet and the NICHES press pack

The NICHES Final Conference gathered more than 280 participants in Toulouse

The NICHES Final conference took place in Toulouse on the 16th of March 2007, in the framework of POLIS annual conference. Some 280 experts and local elected representatives participated. At the event the NICHES findings were presented by representatives from local and regional authorities where NICHES Innovative Concepts have been successfully implemented, addressing the issue of how to transfer innovative transport policies from one city to another.

At the end of the conference, the OSMOSE Awards, selected on the basis of innovation and transferability potential of the measures, were rewarded to the Cities of Bremen, the Region of Emilia Romagna, the City of Graz, the City of Barcelona, the City of Freiburg and the City of Stockholm. EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot delivered the Awards. See the press release for more information.

At the exhibition area each NICHES Working Group thematic area had its own stand, were the new Policy Notes where presented. The participants had the opportunity to learn and invest on the NICHES Innovative Concepts, with Nichs that they had received with the participants pack. At the exhibition area a big screen showed the results of the NICHES stock exchange, where Public Bicycles was the most popular Innovative Concept.

Proceedings and presentations of the NICHES Final Conference.

The rest of the presentations at the Polis Conference are available on the Polis website.