BABLE Smart Cities

20/10/2026

Plenty of cities have chargers. The tricky part is getting everything around them to work together. ⚡

Our UKI Lead & Global Urban Futurist Peter Griffiths heads to the London EV Show next month to help work that out. He joins the “Smart Cities & Urban Mobility Transformation” panel alongside John Kavanagh (BusinessLDN), Charlie Allen (Believ) and Kieran Fitsall (Brighton & Hove City Council). Bill Murray, who founded the London to Brighton EV Rally, will chair, so expect things to move along briskly.

On the agenda:
🔹 Scaling charging infrastructure to city size
🔹 Turning mobility data into decisions
🔹 Public-private partnerships that actually last

🔹 18 November, 12:22 at ExCeL London. Come say hi!

So what’s slowing your city down? The plugs, the plans or the partnerships?



Kavanagh Allen Fitsall Murray & Hove City Council EV Show

19/10/2026

What’s really holding cities back? Hint: it’s rarely the technology.

Tamlyn Shimizu, our Head of Markets & Partnerships - Global and Senior Communications Expert, is taking that question to Barcelona for . Here’s where to find her:

🎤 The Implementation Gap: A Forum for Action | The Most Honest Panel Ever

🌍 How are Cities Anticipating, Absorbing and Recovering from Climate Change?
📅 Tuesday 3 November | 13:05-13:50 | Urban Systems Stage
A roundtable on extreme weather, infrastructure stress and what resilient planning really looks like in practice. With Simon Giles (Field States), Trinidad Fernandez (Fraunhofer IAO), Étienne Métais (CDP) and Nigel Bax (Sorigué).

💧 Circular By Design: Water and Waste as a Strategic Urban Asset
📅 Thursday 5 November | 14:10-14:55 | Urban Systems Stage
How cities can protect water resources, cut waste and deliver better services through circular approaches. With Hamid Nikvan (City of North Miami Beach) and Cristhyano Cavali da Luz (Unilivre/City of Curitiba).

Three conversations, one thread: the gap between ambition and delivery, and how cities close it.

Want to catch Tamlyn between sessions? Send her a message and set up a time to meet. 👋

15/10/2026

🚸: When infrastructure and enforcement reach their limit, how do you still make the school run safer?

Last week, BABLE took part in the CIVITAS MUSE study visit in Stuttgart. The host city put a real challenge on the table: making school routes in Stuttgart West safer, and shifting the “parent taxi” habit that crowds streets and puts children at risk.

Over three days, Stuttgart worked side by side with its peer region Reġjun Tramuntana (Malta), a Ukrainian peer city, and a pool of invited experts and champion cities, from Warsaw and Barcelona to CEREMA and the European Transport Safety Council. [TAG Them]

Representing BABLE, Alex Schmidt brought our work on co-created, people-first neighbourhoods into the room:
🏘️: The NEB Lab Sustainable and Inclusive Neighbourhoods [TAG] as a method to co-create safe, inclusive streets with children, parents and residents
🔗: A networked “safe school path” approach, inspired by León, that scales beyond a single street
💶: And the financial instruments to fund it all, so the solution lasts beyond one budget cycle

Safer school routes are co-created, networked across the city, and funded to last.
Thank you to the City of Stuttgart and EUROCITIES for a brilliant exchange. 🙌

14/10/2026

In a world where cities are expected to decarbonise heating while energy prices stay high and budgets stay tight, the most valuable energy sources are often the ones already flowing beneath their streets.

In our latest BABLE Smart Cities Newsletter, we look at how the City of Cologne is tackling a familiar barrier: public buildings like schools still rely heavily on gas heating, while a steady, year-round source of local heat runs unused through the city’s sewer network.

Working with RheinEnergie, Cologne installed a heat exchanger in the sewer and paired it with water-to-water heat pumps to recover warmth from wastewater and supply it to nearby schools. Delivered through an energy supply contracting model, the city gets lower-carbon heating without carrying the upfront investment, turning existing infrastructure into a reliable energy source for any city with a sewer network to tap.

📩 Inside this edition:
🔷 A real-world use case on recovering heat from sewage water in Cologne.
🔷 A conversation with Allan Pilgaard-Jensen (ProjectZero, City of Sønderborg) and Drew Turner (Danfoss) on how public-private partnership is driving Sønderborg towards net zero.
🔷 Upcoming events: World Green Infrastructure Congress, Smart City Expo World Congress and COP31.

👉 Read the full newsletter here: https://ow.ly/C9Zk50ZXrYG

13/10/2026

Most of the plastic in our oceans doesn’t start at sea. Rivers carry it there, across borders, until it reaches the coast. So what if a river could stop it on the way?

In Vila do Conde, that’s being tested on the Ave River. The municipality worked with The Great Bubble Barrier and the EU-funded MAELSTROM project to install a Bubble Barrier: a curtain of air bubbles that guides plastic to the riverbank for collection, without interfering with daily river activity. It’s the first one in Portugal and the first to stop plastic flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.

The pilot gets 70% of its funding from the EU, and its results will decide whether the barrier becomes a permanent part of the city.

Where in your city would catching the problem upstream make the biggest difference? 🌊

Explore the full use case on BABLE: https://ow.ly/qwEZ50ZWNFH

12/10/2026

Urban Shark Tank at Smart City Expo World Congress 2026: applications close soon!

Got a project that's making waves in a city? There's still time to bring it to Urban Shark Tank.

If you're from the private sector and have successfully implemented a project in a city, this is your chance to pitch it live on stage to our panel of urban "Sharks": experienced city and innovation experts who'll give you honest feedback, sharp questions, and real insight into how to scale your solution across other cities.

📅 4 November 2026, 10:45–11:30
📍 Barcelona, Spain

⏰ Application deadline: Wednesday, 21 October, 12:00 AM CET

What would the Sharks ask about your project? Apply now and find out 👇
https://ow.ly/aOuL50ZP7qT

09/10/2026

What changes when a climate commitment is written into law rather than a strategy document?

Bhutan's Constitution requires at least 60% of the country to stay forested, for all time. Today forest cover sits above 70%, making Bhutan one of a handful of countries that absorb more carbon than they emit. Hydropower adds to the picture, powering the country and supplying electricity exports to India.

The interesting part for cities is the mechanism: a fixed minimum that outlasts political cycles. Some cities already use binding canopy or green space targets in local plans.

What would a non-negotiable environmental floor look like in your city?

🌳🔴🌹❤️🔋💚♻️ Bhutan: A country where forests absorb more carbon than the nation emits. 🇧🇹 Bhutan is one of the world’s few carbon-negative countries. Forests cover around 71.6% of its land area, according to World Bank data. What makes this remarkable is that Bhutan’s C...

08/10/2026

Welcome back, Merijn! 👋

For the past five years as Head of Product Development, Merijn has shaped the digital tools that help companies find their way through the European public sector, from the City Insights Manager to Tender PRO and Funding PRO.

After some time away welcoming a new addition to his family, he's back with the team and already full of plans:
"Less sleep, more coffee, lots of ideas. Good to be back!"

We're glad to have you back, Merijn, and curious to see where those ideas take our tools next.

06/10/2026

🚗 80 Fahrzeuge und trotzdem keins frei. Kommt Ihnen das bekannt vor?

In unserem aktuellen Webinar „80 Fahrzeuge. Und trotzdem keins frei.“ haben wir uns angesehen, wie der Landkreis Böblingen den Schritt von der Fahrzeugverwaltung zum Mobilitätsmanagement geschafft hat und was andere Behörden daraus lernen können.

💡 Die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse:

🔹 Landkreis Böblingen
Jens Brenner berichtete, wie ein Fuhrpark von rund 80 Fahrzeugen in Spitzenzeiten trotzdem nicht ausreichte. Über eine Schnittstelle ist Carsharing jetzt direkt ins Fuhrparkmanagementsystem eingebunden, und gebucht wird weiterhin mit nur einer Buchung. So deckt der Landkreis zusätzlichen Bedarf standortnah ab, Mitarbeitende können Dienstfahrten schon am Wohnort beginnen, und zwei ausgelaufene Leasingfahrzeuge mussten nicht ersetzt werden.

🔹 Fraunhofer IAO
Steffen Braun machte deutlich, dass es an Fahrzeugen eigentlich nicht mangelt. Die eigentliche Aufgabe ist, die vorhandenen besser zu teilen, zu managen und zu dekarbonisieren, hin zu einem „Internet der Mobilität“, in dem es für jeden Fahrzweck die passende Lösung gibt, auch ohne eigenen Besitz.

🔹 Adapt 2 Move
Stefan Schick zeigte, wie isolierte Prozesse und nicht verbundene Mobilitätsoptionen Reibungsverluste und konkrete Kosten verursachen. Sein Ausblick: KI kann Rechnungen, Fahrtenbücher und Leasingverträge erstmals in einem System zusammenführen und so die zentrale Frage beantworten, wie klein ein Fuhrpark wirklich sein kann.

🔹 Enterprise Mobility
Bastian Klee stellte die „atmende Flotte“ vor: Eigene Fahrzeuge decken den Grundbedarf, Mietwagen und Carsharing fangen die Spitzen ab. Seine Kernbotschaft: Nicht die Mobilitätsform entscheidet über die Wirtschaftlichkeit, sondern das Nutzungsprofil.

🤝 Die Diskussion hat eines klar gezeigt: Bevor Fahrzeug Nummer 81 beschafft wird, sollten Behörden fragen, welche Mobilitätskapazität sie wirklich brauchen und wann.

🎥 Sie haben das Webinar verpasst? Hier geht es zur vollständigen Aufzeichnung: https://ow.ly/oBOY50ZUmn4

Neugierig, was Ihre eigenen Fuhrparkdaten verraten könnten? Sprechen Sie uns an.

05/10/2026

When a fire crew is on the way to an emergency, how many separate systems would they need to check to understand what they're heading into?

In Düsseldorf, the answer is now one. Ubilabs and the Düsseldorf Fire Brigade built Sentinel.D, a platform that brings live weather, traffic and water level data together on a single map. First responders can assess risks straight away and make faster, more proactive decisions before a situation escalates.

When data sits in separate systems, it's slow to use under pressure. Putting it in one shared view changes how quickly a city can respond.

Which data would make the biggest difference to your city's emergency response if it were all in one place? 🚒

Explore the full use case on BABLE: https://ow.ly/Fbvj50ZTSxh