Scaling sharing-economy infrastructure in European cities: A strategic analysis of digital kiosks

Abstract

This practitioner abstract presents DK-SCALE, an initiative carried out as part of the Interreg North Sea Digital Kiosks project, which develops and tests a method for comparing alternative ways to scale sharing-economy services in cities. Digital kiosks are neighbourhood access points where residents can borrow shared tools and equipment. Working with the City of Gothenburg and its public-housing partner Familjebostäder, we modelled three configurations: Public Utility, Public-Private Partnership, and Outsourced Service, each simulated over a 10-year horizon linking financial flows to public-value outcomes. The results show that the scaling decision is not which model performs best, but which success metric should govern the choice: inclusion and access, or financial self-sufficiency. A cross-consortium evaluation with 17 participants confirmed the method's value for making the complexity of scaling visible, and we seek discussion on how the approach travels to other cities and policy contexts.