QUICK LIST

• Building a global coalition to advance informal transportation

• Crowdsourcing an encyclopedia of informal transportation vehicles in Central America

• Envisioning a future where transportation governance is centered on the movement of people

• Tracking global innovations in informal transportation

• Organizing and sustaining a city arts and culture festival

• Organizing and curating an urban cycling festival to promote a culture of biking

• Creating a plan for an emerging transportation information ecosystem

• Conceptualizing and executing on an innovative way for government to fund placemaking

• Developing national guidance for low carbon development and carbon neutral cities

• Initiating lean and agile methods in a city government agency

• Organizing a program for public art to create awareness of a valuable but neglected city asset

• Mobilizing allies and creating a program to make public spaces safe for women

• Running scenario planning exercises about informality in six megacities around the world

• Analyzing and prescribing new approaches to governing a metropolis of 15 million people

• Inviting and integrating the private sector into sustainable mobility strategies

• Developing a playbook to help a city deal with rapid changes in urban mobility

Our work

This is the expertise and experience we bring to Agile City Partners. We’ve worked with various governments, local and national, and with cities around the world.

Building a global coalition to advance informal transportation

Agile City Partners initiated the creation of the Global Partnership for Informal Transportation, an initiative that seeks to change the narrative around informal transportation and will work hand-in-hand with informal urban transportation systems of the Global South to advance innovation, improve services, and change business models.

The Global Partnership for Informal Transportation is a project of NewCities, initiated by Agile City Partners, and, supported by CoMotion Inc. Our Strategic Partners include: UNDP Accelerator Labs, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, and the Shared-Use Mobility Center.

Crowdsourcing an encyclopedia of informal transportation vehicles in Central America

Agile City Partners joined the Centro Para la Sostenibilidad Urbana (CPSU), along with the Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU) at the University College London (UCL), to conduct the first Central American Datathon on informal transportation and produce the Enciclopedia del Transporte Informal en América Central.

You can download the Enciclopedia (in Spanish) here.

You can watch the presentation of the findings (in Spanish) here.

Envisioning a future where transportation governance is centered on the movement of people

Agile City Partners led the Move As One Coalition and WeSolve through a visioning process for the future of land transportation in the Philippines. Part of the effort included a conceptual priorities map of future governmental functions. The diagram shows the important issues that transportation system managers (the government) must pay attention to in a system that puts people and society first. They show the functions that would need to exist to achieve and maintain the vision.

Tracking global innovations in informal urban transportation

Benjie writes and curates Makeshift Mobility, a fortnightly newsletter on innovations in informal transportation. Silicon Valley unicorns get all the love but mobility innovations from the bottom up are making cities and the planet better for the people who use and who operate informal transport. (Especially the urban poor.)

You can read and subscribe here.

Organizing and sustaining a city arts and culture festival

Julia has been planning, curating, and staging the Escolta Block Festival with a community of advocates. For over four years, she helped guide the growth of this month-long celebration of creative culture in the heart of Manila. The festival explored the future of Philippine cities and how cities are given meaning by their people.

You can watch a video of the festival here.

Organizing and curating an urban cycling festival to promote a culture of biking

Andrea is the founder of ExpoBici, the largest cycling festival in Costa Rica. This festival has been celebrated since 2017, attracting more than 5000 people in each edition. It includes:

• Fun: competitions, bike rides and tracks

• Shop: bike exhibit and sales

• Learn: workshops and lectures for different publics on best practices to make more bike-friendly cities, and the benefits of a stronger cycling culture.

Creating a plan for an emerging transportation information ecosystem

Benjie led an agile team at the Seattle Department of Transportation to develop the draft Transportation Information Infrastructure Plan. There is an emerging information ecosystem that is shaping transportation in cities. It will make getting around the city more convenient. Parts of it are run by the public sector, parts by private companies. To make sure it works for everyone and doesn’t discriminate against anyone, we needed a plan for the information itself.

You can download at the draft plan here or read a version on Medium.

Conceptualizing and executing on an innovative way for government to fund placemaking

Julia conceptualized and executed a national initiative to provide capacity building, technical assistance, and budgets to develop public open spaces in 145 cities. Working with academia, design practitioners, real estate developers, Julia shaped the policy framework for the Philippine Department of Budget and Management that became known as the country’s Green, Green, Green program.

You can read more about it here.

Developing national guidance for low carbon development and carbon neutral cities

Andrea and her team supported the Ministry of the Environment of Costa Rica in developing the country’s National Carbon Neutrality Program for Cities and Communities. This program provides guidance for measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions, and practical example sheets with urban projects and policies that cities can implement as part of their mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Initiating lean and agile methods in a city government agency

Benjie initiated Lean Transformation in a municipal transportation agency, leading diverse teams through kaizen (continuous improvement) workshops. The teams delivered at least $1M in annual cost savings by slashing process times and eliminating 70% of process steps. Some examples include: cutting down the internal process to get a capital project from 0% to 30% design from an average of 14 months, down to six months; and, cutting down approvals of street activity permits from three months to one week.

Organizing a program for public art to create awareness of a valuable but neglected city asset

Julia initiated the Pasig Art for Urban Change program to promote the potential of the Pasig River. Bringing together the British Council, major corporate sponsors, and volunteers, the program engaged local artists to mount murals on flood pumping stations along the overlooked river. The murals became popular attractions but were also a conversation starter to renew public interest in the Pasig as a corridor for transport, biodiversity, and culture.

You can watch a short video of the program here.

Mobilizing allies and creating a program to make public spaces safe for women

Andrea led the creation of the Anti-Harassment Brigade, a simple but innovative method for making public spaces and massive events safer for women and vulnerable populations. Joining up with the local government, police, local artists and festival staff, the Brigade establishes “safe points” and trains volunteers to raise awareness, detect and contain any sexual harassment situations.

Running scenario planning exercises about informality in six megacities around the world

Benjie initiated The Informal City Dialogues, a multi-city scenario planning exercise across six cities in three continents--Lima, Accra, Nairobi, Chennai, Bangkok, and Manila--involving local community groups, sectoral representatives, civic leaders, and government. The initiative elevated the importance and the out sized contributions of informal city to urban development.

You can watch short video about the program here.

Analyzing and prescribing new approaches to governing a metropolis of 15 million people

Julia crafted key recommendations to strengthen institutions for urban and metropolitan management and service delivery as part of the Philippines Urbanization Review: Fostering Competitive, Sustainable, Inclusive Cities, a policy guide for the Government of the Philippines led by the World Bank.

You can read the report here (pdf download).

Inviting and integrating the private sector into sustainable mobility strategies

Andrea led the development of a Guide for Developing Corporate Sustainable Mobility Plans, currently used in Costa Rica for companies who want to contribute to a more sustainable mobility for their employees and city. This guide was later used as a base for a Guide of Public Sector Institutions to Develop Sustainable Mobility Plans, as mandated by the Government of Costa Rica.

Developing a playbook to help a city deal with rapid changes in urban mobility

Benjie led the development of Seattle’s New Mobility Playbook, a ground-breaking and nationally recognized plan that gave the city a strategic foundation to frame new policies and programs around emerging mobility technology.

You can read the plan here.