Mayor Eric Garcetti of the City of Los Angeles and London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, have partnered to make London and Los Angeles ‘Innovator Cities’ with the shared goal of addressing transportation issues. The two cities plan to work together to identify common transportation problems and develop solutions that can work anywhere in the world.
“Los Angeles is ready to test-drive new ideas, inventions, and innovations on our streets right now,” said Mayor Garcetti. “Our partnership with London is about putting the best concepts in the world onto our local roads and railways, taking steps together to reduce traffic, cut carbon emissions, and build resilient cities for the future.”
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said, “London and Los Angeles are two of the world’s boldest and most innovative cities, so it makes perfect sense for us to join forces with the aim of addressing some of the biggest transport challenges facing us today. Working together enables us to share best practice, promote new ideas and find pioneering solutions that could be replicated in other cities around the globe.”
Their first pilot project will be the London FreightLab Innovation Challenge. London FreightLab is calling for innovative ideas to make freight in London safer, cleaner, and more efficient. The winning innovators will be given the opportunity to pitch their solution to the City of Los Angeles and test their proposals in a completely new market.
“London and Los Angeles are very different cities, but have a number of grand challenges in common, as well as a desire to partner with the best market innovators from start-ups to corporates to help solve them,” said Michael Hurwitz, TfL’s director of transport innovation. “By working together we want to promote ideas that have the potential to scale to cities across the world. FreightLab is our first pilot for collaboration and we encourage as many companies as possible to consider taking part.”