City of Aachen

www.aachen.de

About the City of Aachen

With 250,000 inhabitants, Aachen is Germany’s westernmost major city. Aachen’s strength is the enormous density of R&D competence, not only in the development of vehicle technology and the production of e-vehicles, but also in the development of mobility solutions of the future. From the point of view of research, an open city has become a prerequisite for success. Innovations can only be successful if they also experience diffusion, i.e. are accepted by people.

Against this background, Aachen’s innovation drivers have joined forces to form the transdisciplinary innovation network ‘Erlebniswelt Mobilität Aachen´(Living Lab Mobility Aachen / EMA) to jointly develop and test innovative use cases in public spaces within the city in the upcoming years. The original partnership between e.GO, Ford, FEV, Lumileds, Ericsson, ASEAG, RWTH Aachen University and the city of Aachen today consists of 40 local partners, including various university institutes as well as numerous innovative companies and digital start-ups. The declared goal is to jointly develop the mobility of tomorrow and to allow the city society to experience the innovations within a living lab, while at the same time testing and securing user acceptance through innovative feedback methods and co-creation approaches is of great importance.

The overall aim of Aachen is to develop a sustainable mobility strategy and to integrate innovative mobility concepts into the cityscape. As an immediate border city with a long European tradition, Aachen uses its strong European contacts to promote dissemination in a broader context, including further cooperation with other innovation networks in the field of mobility or related topics in and outside of Germany. Experience and knowledge should be shared so that a common learning and added value can be created.