Norway will open its first Mobility Hotel in Oslo tomorrow that will act as a single point of contact for bike-based urban logistics in the city centre.
Within the ‘Kaia Mobility Hotel’, vehicle purchases, financing, service and maintenance, vehicle modifications, a worker’s rest area, storage, and charging facilities will all be offered and operated by Oslo-based Mobility Solutions AS.
Oslo aims to be a zero-emission city by 2030. Co-financed through the EU project MOVE21, the Mobility Hotel is a public-private collaboration between partners including Mobility Solutions, Finnish food delivery company Wolt, the City of Oslo, Norwegian postal service Posten Bring, and facility management company Nordic FM Group.
“The Kaia Mobility Hotel is about establishing a new and holistic service offer that makes it easier for couriers, service and maintenance workers, and last mile operators to switch from cars and vans to bikes,” Andreas Hætta, Mobility Solutions CEO and facility manager of the hotel, told Zag Daily. “We observed how many cargo bikes were gathering dust due to a lack of comprehensive, effective maintenance and service options and wanted to change this trend.”
The Mobility Hotel will expand in Autumn to include small-scale consolidation, an outdoor battery swapping station and a mini-warehouse. Services are to be added based on identified needs, and the collaboration includes an opt-in clause for more partners to join.
MOVE21 credits the City of Oslo in its progress in electrifying vehicles, but wants the Mobility Hotel to demonstrate how measures beyond electrification can also reduce car-based traffic and optimise the use of existing infrastructure.
“Urban logistics is fundamental to city life and it encompasses more than just e-commerce and parcel delivery,” Tiina Ruohonen, MOVE21 Project Coordinator and City of Oslo Senior Adviser told Zag Daily. “Deliveries, collections and servicing in urban areas generate all kinds of non-passenger freight trips, and a key question for both MOVE21 and the City of Oslo is to find out how many car-based trips we can replace with bikes through measures such as this Mobility Hotel.
“For MOVE21 it will be very interesting to understand more about the business model and how we could upscale and replicate these types of mobility hotels elsewhere.”
Earlier this year, Sweden opened its first Mobility Hotel in Gothenburg, also co-financed through MOVE21. Located in the country’s largest shopping and business centre, it combines micromobility and micro-logistics services for the 70,000 people that pass through the centre each day.
Wolt aims for the Mobility Hotel in Oslo to make urban mobility more efficient for its courier partners by transitioning from cars to cargo bikes. To be economically viable, costs must be kept low and reliability high.
“Every minute of downtime means lost revenue, so in order to convince couriers to switch from cars to electric cargo-bikes, we must make sure there is infrastructure in place to provide opportunities for charging and repairs of the bikes with as little lost time as possible,” Christian Kamhaug, Head of Communications and PR at Wolt Norway, Iceland and Luxemburg, said.
“The Mobility Hotel provides all this, as well as a place for couriers to relax between assignments, charge their phone and grab a cup of coffee or have a chat with others doing similar work. I guess our only complaint is that there is only one in Oslo, so far!”
The Kaia Mobility Hotel will be inaugurated tomorrow on-site at Filipstadveien 5C in Oslo’s city centre.
