Los Angeles and London have partnered to encourage innovators and start-ups to find creative solutions to major transportation challenges. Metro/TfL

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a historic agreement to make London and Los Angeles ‘Innovator Cities’ — enabling greater collaboration to take on critical transportation issues confronting cities around the world.

This agreement will enable the cities to work together to identify where similar problems exist and ensure that solutions developed in either city can work elsewhere in the world. This partnership will also give companies the opportunity to take part in “start-up exchanges,” where start-ups can pitch their ideas in both London and L.A. — and enable both cities to tap into the best possible concepts available.

The collaboration taps into the growing transportation innovation ecosystem in Los Angeles, where the recent launch of Urban Movement Labs is providing private sector and community innovators with opportunities to test solutions in real urban conditions in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles and London hope to expand the ‘Innovator Cities’ network in the months and years ahead, allowing even more communities across the globe to benefit from the best ideas in the marketplace.

The approach will be piloted through the London FreightLab Innovation Challenge. London FreightLab is calling for the best innovators in the UK to come up with ideas to make freight in London safer, cleaner, and more efficient. Through the new agreement, the winning innovators could be given the opportunity to pitch their solution to the City of Los Angeles and test their proposals in a completely new market.