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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INCLUSION (Towards more accessIble and iNCLUSIve mObility solutions for EuropeaN prioritised areas)

Teaser

Summary

In a scenario of changing needs of people and landscape of services, public transport is still a primary asset for people living in deprived urban neighbourhoods, rural areas or otherwise experiencing socio-economical or geographical conditions. Where public transport services is not suitable for the needs of passengers, mobility may become difficult or impossible with consequent risk of social exclusion.
The main objective of the INCLUSION project is to understand, assess and evaluate the accessibility and inclusiveness of transport solutions in European prioritised areas, to identify gaps and unmet needs, propose and experiment with a range of innovative and transferable solutions, including ICT-enabled elements, ensuring accessible, inclusive and equitable conditions for all and especially vulnerable user categories.
These objectives are pursued by analysing the current conditions across European prioritised areas and relevant needs of various vulnerable user and social groups. This is the basis for investigating the potential of transport solutions involving social innovation and ICT tools on the level of accessibility, inclusiveness and equity of mobility. This includes the conduction of a large set of case studies involving different forms of geographical areas, demographic categories, population groups and mobility solutions and a validation through real-life experiments in a selected group of areas. These Pilot Labs provides direct access to a variety of different transport environments, socio-economic contexts, cultural and geographical conditions. The outcomes are eventually validated and studied to develop and consolidate business concepts and models related to the assessed transport options with the aim of transferring these findings to other European contexts.

Work performed

An initial characterisations of vulnerable users and areas has been operated considering several factors including area type, user segmentation, mobility options, transport infrastructure and quality of service provision. Key societal trends affecting mobility, accessibility, inclusivity and equity have been considered together with the impacts of such trends on vulnerable users. This resulted in a multi-dimensional description including geographic, demographic, economic, societal and behavioural aspects. The study focuses especially on key characteristics that may, singularly or in combination with other factors, present challenges to the provision of equitable transport services across a wide spectrum of users.
Closer examination has been done on: models of service provision; requirements for information provision; the varying impacts that different geographies may have upon relevant models of service provision and how these different characteristics interact to create a spectrum of places with specific mobility needs.
A vast research has been done to identify and critically assess existing innovative forms of public transport covering the priorities identified. This includes a total of 51 case studies (ten studied in-depth and 41 at lesser depth) and reviews of ICT-Enabled Social Innovation (IESI) experiences. Such review, specifically, has been conducted with a methodological approach inspired by the multi-year research â€œICT-enabled Social Innovation to support the Implementation of the Social Investment Packageâ€ by the EU Joint Research Centre, in partnership with the Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. A creative work has been then carried out to define new IESI ideas and concepts to fill the gaps still open. Some of the concepts have been then selected for further study, use and implementation in the Pilot Labs.
The piloting activities started with a pre-feasibility analysis of objectives and measures up to definition of a detailed Local Pilot Action Plan for the design, implementation and operation phases.
From the outcomes of the Pilot Labs, a quantitative assessment of the impacts and a qualitative process evaluation of the transport solutions implemented will be achieved based on methodologies developed in the first period.
Dissemination and promotion of results is ongoing, based on a strategy aiming at maximizing the impacts. INCLUSION was present at some 20 events where the first results have been presented or otherwise disseminated.
The research and achievements are enhanced and validated via external collaborations with a Stakeholdersâ€™ Forum, set up at the onset of project activities, gathering transport operators, local authorities and academic experts. This cooperation aims primarily at producing and maximizing impacts that can be sound and effective.

Final results

From the analysis and desk research, innovative solutions based on ICT enabled social innovation, have been defined and developed. They offers a variety of technology centred solutions ranging from delivery of completely new transport services, enhancements in operating performance of existing services, or improved understanding and awareness of userâ€™s needs and how to better cater for these.
The INCLUSION Pilot Labs will use and further explore some of the solutions with the involvement of local transport operators to address the problem of integration with existing PT network. The goal is not to create standalone innovation but rather to facilitate access to existing transport networks.
This happens for example with existing Specialist Transport Services in Flanders region which today operates mostly in parallel to the existing PT network rather than in support of it. Here, the popular Less Mobility Services (now mostly used by elderly people with reduced mobility) will be technologically improved to get real time information and booking capabilities. This will bring a raised awareness of travel options with an increased uptake of services. The development of an open database can be also studied to enable such integration in a full automated way which allows both the users and operators to recognise the value in offering connected journeys.
Another example of ICT-enabled social innovation is the application of information mining from Social Networks (Twitter) to identify the demand from potential users who want to attend big events. This experiment, conducted in Barcelona metropolitan area, combines social network data with the demographic distribution, transport connectivity, and historic data of attendees from previous events in the same area. This enables planners to aggregate the mobility demand from different geographic areas which are poorly served by existing PT service provision and is used to propose the most suitable demand responsive tailored bus routes and bus-stop locations for the unserved demand.
ICT in INCLUSION will also support an innovative Person Centred Funding (PCF) model with a mobility budget to pay for transport services using a MaaS App in Flanders Pilot. Focused on migrant jobseekers and potential employers, mostly located in rural areas, members can buy a ticket, using a pre-loaded budget, for public transport and bike-sharing. The app provides an easy way to buy tickets and to discover multiple modes of transport among the currently existing MaaS offering. The lowest price is provided for the transport modes and a feedback system opens up new ways to understand the potential and margin of improvements for integrated transport solutions.