As part of the European Commission’s Clusters Meet Regions event in Regensburg, Cross-Session I: Smart City × Cluster Innovation provided a clear illustration of how Regensburg operationalises cross-innovation at the interface of urban development, mobility, and digital technologies. Representing the Cluster Mobility & Logistics, Anne Häner presented ongoing initiatives that demonstrate how coordinated collaboration between companies, research institutions, municipal actors, and the local innovation ecosystem generates measurable impact.
At the centre of the presentation stood the city’s Living Lab R_Lab Mobility, which serves as a real-life testbed for data-driven mobility solutions and agile innovation processes. Several pilot projects were highlighted to showcase how Smart City objectives are translated into concrete applications. These include the AI Driver’s License—a digital literacy format developed together with i40 – the future skills company, the City of Regensburg and REGENSBURG_NEXT—as well as ongoing work in data-driven traffic analysis for urban and transport planning, the digital analysis of stationary traffic, smart public lighting, and the deployment of environmental sensors in the urban area.
The session also integrated a set of current partner projects that exemplify Regensburg’s collaborative and application-oriented innovation culture. These include Project SDP (sdp GmbH), Project DARuV (DCX Innovations GmbH), Project ReSense3D (digitalwerk GmbH and NewSense Engineering GmbH), and the environmental sensor box initiative (AVL Software and Functions GmbH). Each of these activities contributes to building a more precise, data-rich understanding of mobility behaviour, environmental conditions, and urban infrastructure needs.
The session was jointly guided by Franziska Meier, who structured the discussion and provided contextual links to the broader Smart City agenda. A testimonial from Wolfgang Brandl added an important practitioner’s perspective, highlighting the value of collaborative development and real-life testing environments for accelerating urban innovation.
Across all examples, a consistent theme emerged: Regensburg’s innovation ecosystem is characterised by co-creation, real-world experimentation, and structures that accelerate transformation. The Living Lab approach fosters rapid prototyping and cross-sector collaboration, enabling Smart City solutions to be tested, validated, and scaled under real urban conditions. As demonstrated in the session, this combination of practical pilot environments and strategic cluster cooperation positions Regensburg as a strong regional model for implementing innovative mobility solutions in European cities.