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If your company focuses on connected, collaborative or autonomous driving, this is the moment to take action. MobilitymoveZ.NL has published a tender with which new initiatives around the solution of mobility problems should be ignited.

The Netherlands wishes to be, and to remain, a frontrunner in the development and application of innovations for traffic, transport, and mobility. In recent years, Dutch government authorities have undertaken numerous initiatives and made numerous investments, which will be further intensified in the years to come. Under the name of MobilitymoveZ.NL, the province of Noord Brabant and the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment are initiating a pre-deployment environment, together with the municipalities of Helmond, Eindhoven and Tilburg, and Rijkswaterstaat (Southern Netherlands). MobilitymoveZ.NL might just be the ideal environment to test out new products and services in the daily practice of urban life, which – if they prove to be successful – will be immediately considered for large-scale roll-out.

The goal is to implement mobility concepts for personal and goods transport within four years, bringing these developments together: concepts based on ‘level 4 autonomous driving’ in the urban area, including on-demand services and sustainable (electric) power to the greatest extent possible. Collaboration is being sought with diverse private partners to this end.

In order to achieve this, it is looking to cooperate with various private partners. They will be given the possibility to test, monitor and continuously improve upscalable and reproducible mobility services on the roads in real-life situations. It is important to ascertain what works and what does not, what the cost/revenues ratio looks like, where the division of roles between public and private parties requires adjustment, and to know what other conditions are required. Ambitions are high at MobilitymoveZ.NL, but its scale is still relatively small, making the uncertainties manageable. Successful concepts tested on a small scale can be scaled up within the SmartwayZ.NL program and in the rest of the Netherlands and Europe.

MobilitymoveZ.NL creates an environment with good basic facilities and innovation-oriented regulations. Politically-administrative commitment, a project organisation, and public co-financing are available to support consortia when testing their concepts. Support consists of making various provisions available, facilitating the process of granting exemptions regarding existing regulations and completing other prerequisites.

The requests will focus on (R&D and innovation departments of) car manufacturers (OEMs), providers of MaaS services, 1st-tier suppliers, IT companies with a focus on and capabilities for traffic and mobility, lease companies, car importers or insurers.

MobilitymoveZ.NL focuses on the pre-deployment phase. A strategy is chosen in which agreements are made via O&O assignments. The (international) business community is requested to make its interest known in order to be eligible for one or several R&D orders as part of the MobilitymoveZ.NL project in the coming 5 years. It is foreseen that several R&D orders will be awarded in the coming years. Each of this will have its own dynamics and associated scope. On the basis of the draft invitations developed by the contracting authorities within MobilitymoveZ.NL, definitive invitations are formulated – always on the basis of a dialogue with market participants. These definitive invitations must then lead to suitable tenders. The dialogue process assists in fleshing out all types of functional and technical requirements and wishes, as well as establishing collaboration between market participants and/or combinations. Based on these offers, specific agreements will be made with the market partners in question regarding the way in which controllable, large-scale field tests can be implemented in a phased manner. The aim is to be able to perform testing with mobility concepts at TRL level 9 at the end of phase 4, within 4 years.

More information can be found at www.MobilitymoveZ.NL where you can also express your interest. The official announcements are on the websites of TED and TenderNet.