The EIT Urban Mobility North Summit 2025 took place in Stockholm on 16-17 September with over 110 representatives from the public transport and mobility sector in Northern Europe. 

Taking the stage to welcome everyone, EIT Urban Mobility CEO Marc Rozendal set the tone for the following two days: 

“Shifting to public transport delivers high impact returns that outweigh the costs. (…) But public transport must be reliable and high-quality for the majority, and this is only possible through stronger collaboration.” 

To enable collaboration and innovation, the EIT Urban Mobility North Summit 2025 brought the cities and public transport authorities together with the operators, mobility companies, startups and academia. 

Research and collaboration as the backbone of innovation 

The event was co-hosted with Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL) and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, a founding partner of EIT Urban Mobility. Rozendal reminded the attendees that “science and research are the backbone of innovation.” 

Karin Ekdahl Wästberg, Director of Innovation at City of Stockholm, emphasised that conferences like the EIT Urban Mobility North Summit are an integral part of any city’s innovation system, because they bring together stakeholders from across different sectors and regions. 

Stockholm Vice-Mayor for Transport and Urban Environment Lars Strömgren made a similar point: “We are not competing between cities. Rather, cities have to collaborate for innovation.” 

Autonomous solutions are ready to be scaled 

Over two days, participants at the conference shared both their experiences and visions for the future of urban mobility. 

“Is the future of public transport still shared and autonomous? Yes and yes,” said Vibeke Harlem, Director of Radical Innovations at Ruter, the public transport authority (PTA) of Oslo and Akershus in Norway. 

To enable a “systemic shift,” Ruter’s vision is for thousands of shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) to provide a sustainable but “car-like” alternative to the private car that is fully integrated into the public transport system. 

Meanwhile, Vy Buss has successfully deployed autonomous bus pilots in Stavanger, Norway, and Gothenburg, Sweden.  

“The technology [for autonomous vehicles] is mature. We need to start preparing the framework for AV services at scale, rather than starting yet another small-scale pilot just to confirm the tech again,” said Morten Schjødt-Osmo, Business Developer at Vy Buss.

Demand-responsive transport for peri-urban and rural mobility 

Elsewhere, express bus routes combined with demand-responsive transport (DRT) services have shown great potential already. 

In Northern Denmark, Ole Schleemann, Director of Customers and Operations at Nordjyllands Trafikselskab, explained how express buses in rural areas, combined with last-mile DRT services and attractive hubs, have increased both trips and customer satisfaction.  

Through B2B collaborations, Nordjyllands Trafikselskab also offers free public transport for concert and conference attendees, an innovative solution that has seen great results already. 

In Sweden, the PTA of Värmland has developed a highly successful app- and community-based DRT service in a small municipality, reaching over 100,000 trips in only a few years, as a complement to fixed bus routes. 

“Since implementing the solution, we’ve seen a 5,000% increase in passengers,” said Sebastian Tay Hannebo, Project and Development Leader at Värmlandstrafik. 

Make it simple and barrier-free! Enabling multimodality with public transport and micromobility 

In Stockholm, the 2017 introduction of a single-zone system for the region’s 26 municipalities helped increase the number of trips by 20 million/year, along with the option to pay for a ride by simply tapping your bank cards. 

“This really lowered the barrier for using the public transport system. […] We increased the number of trips and customer satisfaction after implementation,” explained Anna Moritz, Business Strategist at Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL), the region’s PTA. 

Shared micromobility can be an important complement to traditional public transport in cities. 

Tina Ghasemi Liljekvist, Senior Public Policy Manager at Voi Technology, and Boel Berg Wincent, PhD Researcher at KTH, each demonstrated how public transport and micromobility are complementary, enabling multimodal journeys that can help reduce the need for cars. 

 “60 percent of our riders in Sweden already combine their trips with public transport,” said Ghasemi Liljekvist. 

Yoann Le Petit, Thought Leadership Manager at EIT Urban Mobility, unveiled preliminary findings from an upcoming study on public bike-sharing systems, noting that their market for bike-sharing has expanded sixfold over the past 15 years and that such schemes bring a significant positive return on investment for cities. 

Succeeding in innovation means trying, failing and trying again! 

In general, it is about having the courage to try things out. “We do test, test, test. We are trying to push for innovation and have the license to go beyond,” said Hugo Gonçalves, Head of EU R&I Collaboration at Forum Virium Helsinki. 

Hannebo shares his recipe for the the success of Värmlandstrafik’s DRT solution: “Have courage, be brave, don’t get stuck in analysis, trial, error, tweak and try again.” 

From autonomous vehicles in Norway and on-demand services in Northern Denmark, to tap-and-go, single-zone ticketing in Stockholm and bike-sharing in Tartu, the summit showcased the innovative solutions already being deployed in the Nordic and Baltic region for a more inclusive, sustainable and efficient future urban mobility system. 

Did you miss the EIT Urban Mobility North Summit 2025? Then make sure to join us next year.