City-hubs for smarter cities. The case of Lille “EuraFlandres” interchange

The importance of the transport infrastructure role is often described in the attempt to describe the characteristics of a “smart city”. Good planning and organization of communication networks contributes to the development of cities that are more fluid and user-friendly and sustainable, concepts underlying “smart cities”. The paper focuses on the impact on social organisation and on conception of transport intermodal infrastructures such as city-hubs inducing new and smarter practices of transport infrastructure, but also the urban dimension and their insertion through the actual city and, even more, by the creation of an entirely new neighbourhood and the preoccupation of a better quality of life. As part of the European research project FP7 “City-HUB”, 27 interchanges have been studied in nine European countries. The paper emphases on the implementation of the City-HUB interchange typology to the case study of Lille European Metropolis (MEL) where two contingent railway stations, Lille Flandres and Lille Europe, were analysed as a potential unique interchange named “Euraflandres”with socio-economic impacts and the possibility that it may become a “place” of life in the smart city.