MOBILE CITY
Our urban environment will be gradually redefined by our desire for more connectivity and healthier lifestyles. Citilinks investigates and creates urban innovation in the context of an unprecedented urban transition. Inspired by the sharing economy, Citilinks is a cross-border think tank dedicated to the mobility of tomorrow.
People Oriented Urbanism
Healthy and Connected Communities
With public spaces, streets and transport facilities designed in priority for people’s health and social cohesion, cities become catalysts of innovation for a better liveability. Citilinks creates solutions for an equitable and connected use of the urban infrastructure with adapted transport solutions to local communities.
Multimodal Approach & Time Management
Time is Space
Lack of governance in technical approaches of transport policies need an adapted response reconsidering the relation between pedestrians, public transport, bicycles, private cars, real-time information and mobile applications. The rise of connectivity is challenging city planners in their spatial approach of city making. Time planning and management becomes a key of a successful and dynamic city making.
Integrating Vehicle, APPS and Public Space Design
Transport/City Interface
Citilinks works on innovative vehicles by integrating the suitable infrastructure and tools (stations/landmarks, dedicated lanes, services and apps) for specific urban contexts (Asian high-densities / Shanghai, African informal mega-cities / Kinshasa, North-American sprawled cities / Vancouver.) We cooperate as urban specialists with transport industries to create the transport solutions of tomorrow.
The Sharing Economy
To Solve Social Challenges
The new possibilities offered by the sharing economy give a new sense of use of our time, and space, in the cities that were designed in a different era. By combining sharing transport solutions with new business models and smart community projects, we intend to build healthier and more flexible environments that inspire people to move differently and spend better their daily time as commuters.
Holistic Mapping & APPS
Dynamic understanding of urban information
A dynamic mapping of a city or a community passes by the integration of many factors that are not de facto connected. Citilinks uses maps to understand how the flows interact and can build synergies and bring benefits to each other.
Our dynamic interpretation of cities helps APPS developers to improve their projects.
About
Citilinks has been co-created by Sebastien Goethals, an urbanist and architect involved in urban mobility & transport innovation and city making projects in various contexts. He has spent more than 12 years as an urban practitioner in Belgium, France, China and Subsaharian Africa with a permanent focus on the city/transport interface. In its early stage, the mission of Citilinks was to build synergies between city makers and transport planners and engineers through urban projects. Understanding together cities, commuters, communities, vehicles and technologies, the approach of Citilinks is considering the urban mobility of tomorrow as a new form lifestyle taking advantage of the connectivity between people and infrastructure.
PROJECTS
urbanism . mobility . transport infra . design . research . apps . furniture . vehicles
Urban China Transforming: the Rise of the Sharing Mobility
Citilinks investigates the current change of commuting behaviors in Chinese cities, where the rise of the ride sharing services is questioning the use and the possession of cars in congested mega-cities like Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Jinan. When meeting commuters and decision makers, developing synergies with transport stakeholders, we also work on new multimodal solutions based on online connectivity and community oriented needs.
The Sharing Ports (China-Canada-EU)
Citilinks and the Metropolitan Collective are developing connected Sharing Port projects in post-industrial port-city interfaces around the world (Qingdao, Nanjing, Vancouver, Rotterdam.) The project aims to create economic and social incubators in port areas oriented to the sharing economy combined with the Industry 4.0 and the circular economy. Located in global port cities, these "sharing ports" are connected and cooperating with a global perspective. Sebastien Goethals will present the Sharing Port project at the 'Cities and Ports' Congress in Rotterdam on 5th October 2016.
Kinshasa KinRapid . How to Design Public Transport Corridors for African Mega-Cities
The KinRapid Bus Rapid Transit network was proposed in 2011 in the Mobility Plan of Kinshasa in order to respond to urban mobility challenges of the fastest growth observed of an informal African mega-city. Kinshasa and its 12 million people face an immense challenge of access to affordable housing, transport, jobs, water and food. Since 2010, we promote healthier and self-sufficient communities based around multimodal public transport stations that connect people and opportunities.
Trencin Healthy Urban Mobility - Strategic Plan
The proposed Mobility Plan of Trencin (Slovakia), included in Trencin, Europe's Healthy City, was the first of its kind to propose a transport strategy based on people's health and urban walkability. Multimodal solutions integrating the use of green bikes, urban-rural tram-trains and shared parking lots out of the city were designed in the purpose of reconnecting communities, riverfront and nature. The project was awarded at the ISOCARP Waterfront Planning Marathon.
Ningbo Green Belt - Green Mobility for Leisure
The existing green belt of Ningbo and its network of rivers and traditional villages is threatened by urbanization pressure and needs to find a way to balance its preservation with a new rural economic model. In cooperation with KC and Connecting Cities, Sebastien Goethals advises Ningbo Urban Planning Institute for the Master Plan of the Xiaojiajiang rural district with an integrated strategy of zero-carbon mobility alternative model for a Chinese suburban rural area.
Smart Lane Initiative
Citilinks is working on a multimodal and low-carbon lane dedicated to healthy transport modes to integrate in metropolitan avenues and urban blocks. The first test will be made in the city of Shanghai in August 2016.
China's New Silk Road Impact Study
China's new Silk Road project - "One Belt, One Road" - will have a significant impact on the connectivity between cities and regions in Asia, Europe and Africa. Citilinks builds an observatory of the "silk road's logistic corridors and hubs" emerging in Myanmar, Pakistan, Kenya, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Belgium and other countries connecting with the globalization of China's development.
Regina Rosemont District
The project of Master Plan of Rosemont District in Regina, Saskatchewan Province, Canada, won the Rosemont 2040 1st Prize of the « Morph My City Challenge ». The master plan aims to density and intensify a suburban residential district of Northern America through an integrated and incremental approach of urbanism.
The smooth densification of the area is accompanied by an increase of quality green spaces, pedestrian green paths going through the district and multimodal transport hubs (bus corridors, Bike&Ride) at the scale of the district. A mobility plan is developed for each mode of transport.
Nanjing Digital Port
Nanjing Port, the largest inner port of China, currently faces a challenging phase of industrial transition, with large areas heavily polluted looking for a greener future. Citilinks and the Metropolitan Collective proposes to restore several Yangzi River waterfronts for more resiliency and convert them to the Industry 4.0 and the collaborative economy. The results of the project will be presented at the Port-City Congress of Rotterdam in October 2016.
WORKSHOPS
We organize tailor-made workshops and events for municipalities, communities and the private sector in cooperation with local universities and institutes. Our mission is to develop innovative solutions for urban environments by bringing people from various horizons together during one intense and creative week.
