INLOVE — Initiative lokale Verkehrswende (Initiative for Local Transport Transition) is a Berlin smart city project that promotes sustainable mobility solutions at the neighbourhood level, recognising that meaningful transport transformation begins in local communities rather than through top-down city-wide mandates alone. The initiative works with selected Berlin neighbourhoods to develop, test, and implement tailored mobility concepts that reduce private car dependence, improve public transport accessibility, expand cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, and introduce shared mobility services suited to local needs and conditions. Each participating neighbourhood undergoes a participatory planning process in which residents, local businesses, schools, and community organisations identify their specific mobility challenges and co-design solutions. These may include establishing car-sharing hubs, creating protected cycle lanes on key routes, redesigning intersections for pedestrian safety, introducing on-demand micro-transit services for areas poorly served by existing public transport, implementing delivery consolidation points to reduce commercial vehicle traffic, and developing school travel plans that encourage walking and cycling among children. The initiative leverages data from Berlin's transport data platform, including real-time traffic counts, public transport usage statistics, and accident data, to identify priority areas and measure the impact of interventions. By working at the neighbourhood scale, INLOVE can respond to the diverse mobility needs of Berlin's different districts — from dense inner-city areas with high cycling potential to outer suburbs where car dependence remains strong. The project feeds its findings back into Berlin's city-wide Mobility Act implementation and its Gemeinsam Digital smart city strategy, ensuring that local insights inform strategic policy decisions. INLOVE demonstrates that sustainable transport transition requires community engagement and locally adapted solutions alongside infrastructure investment and regulatory change.
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