When Smart Mobility Meets Green Food Logistics: A Euro-MED Synergy for Future-Ready Cities
Across the Mediterranean, cities are navigating two parallel transitions that increasingly intersect: the shift toward sustainable mobility and the transformation of green, resilient food logistics systems. Although these domains are often treated separately, the Interreg Euro-MED projects GARDEN and ARTMED demonstrate how deeply interconnected they are.
GARDEN focuses on implementing practical solutions for green urban food logistics, from piloting e-mobility to introducing smart distribution models in Mediterranean cities.
ARTMED, in turn, builds the strategic, institutional, and technological framework that allows local and regional authorities to design and eventually adopt Autonomous Mobility on Demand (AMoD) services.
Despite their different angles, both projects address remarkably similar challenges faced by Mediterranean cities and regions:
- limited resources and fragmented mobility/ logistics flows
- strong need for flexible, demand-responsive services
- economic constraints and the need for viable business models
- infrastructure limitations, especially in rural and island territories
These shared pressures create a fertile ground for cross-sector innovation.
A New Integration Point: From AMoD Mobility Planning to Green Food Distribution
The synergy between ARTMED and GARDEN becomes clear when we consider how smart mobility tools can be repurposed to serve sustainable logistics.
- The .MOBI tool, originally designed to assess and plan DRT and AMoD services, offers analytical capabilities highly valuable for green last-mile delivery, including route optimisation, demand modelling, fleet management, and scenario evaluation.
- ARTMED’s expertise in integrating new mobility services into urban and regional planning can translate into smarter logistics hubs, hybrid mobility-logistics fleets, and models tailored to agricultural supply chains in remote or island areas.
- Conversely, GARDEN’s hands-on experience from pilot implementations in real food logistics environments provides operational insights that can enrich ARTMED’s planning models and future AMoD deployments.
Together, the two projects pave the way for:
- integrated strategies that combine mobility and logistics planning
- demand-responsive services for both people and goods
- resilient regional systems capable of absorbing seasonal fluctuations
- greener last-mile delivery using insights from smart mobility
- joint policy recommendations for sustainable, future-proof Euro-MED territories
Why This Synergy Matters for the Euro-MED Region
Mediterranean cities and regions share unique structural challenges: dispersed settlements, tourism-driven seasonality, limited infrastructure in rural and island areas, and increasing pressure to achieve climate neutrality. Addressing these issues in isolation leads to fragmented solutions; addressing them together opens pathways to true systemic change. By linking GARDEN’s green food logistics innovations with ARTMED’s smart mobility planning, the two projects offer a strong demonstration of how cross-sector collaboration can:
🌱 strengthen local food systems
🚍 reduce emissions from mobility and distribution
🚚 improve efficiency in last-mile delivery
🏙 support integrated territorial planning
🔗 deliver tangible benefits for citizens, producers, and local authorities
A Shared Vision for the Future
The synergies between GARDEN and ARTMED showcase how Mediterranean territories can move beyond traditional silos. It highlights how smart mobility intelligence and tools can be adapted to optimise sustainable food logistics, and how green distribution pilots can inform future AMoD-ready mobility ecosystems. Ultimately, this synergy contributes to building resilient, efficient, and low-emission cities, shaping a Euro-MED region that is better connected, better supplied, and better prepared for the challenges ahead.
Learn more about the GARDEN project here and follow GARDEN’s LinkedIn & Facebook channels.
