Using co-creation methods to solve mobility problems in Brussels

In recent years, urban problems such as congestion and traffic safety have jumped to the top of the political agenda in many European cities. At the same time, governments are increasingly shying away from formal consultation methods to using more participatory methods to find solutions to urban problems. In the Brussels LOOPER Living Lab, bottom-up co-creation methods are tested in a full planning cycle, from problem identification to co-design and evaluation of alternative solutions to implementation and monitoring of these solutions. The research takes place within LOOPER (Learning Loops in the Public Realm), a JPI Europe funded research project with Living Labs running in Brussels, Manchester and Verona. The LOOPER project seeks to improve co-creation processes in urban governance and planning by building a participatory co-creation methodology and platform to demonstrate ‘learning loops’ i.e. new ways of decision-making, which bring together citizens, stakeholders, researchers and policy-makers to address urban challenges. In Brussels, offline and online co-creation methods have been used to define a problem (traffic safety), collect data on this problem, co-design solutions that solve this problem, evaluate the stakeholder support for these solutions, and implement a solution. This paper discusses how a combination of co-creation tools was used to contribute to a better understanding of traffic safety issues, led to co-designed alternatives and finally implementation overarching the full planning cycle in Brussels. Furthermore, the paper discusses how online and offline tools have been combined in the Living Lab.