USEMOBILITY - Understanding Social Behaviour for Eco-friendly Multimodal Mobility
Overview
Background & policy context:
Even though private car use still prevails, the number of people using public transport is increasing. People expect intelligent and affordable mobility, like seamless and accessible collective transport as well as safe infrastructure for walking, cycling and private vehicle use. They also expect more flexible and greener mobility solutions. Most EU citizens believe that the traffic situation in their home area should be improved.
The USEMOBILITY project applies a novel approach that directly identifies the reasons for behavioural change in the mobility of European citizens and forecasts future potential. This approach is based on the behavioural change, which has already taken place.
A survey will be conducted in ten selected regions in five European countries to find out the real reasons for mobility changes. Citizens will be interviewed who have: actually switched from mono-modal car travel to multimodal transportation chains (incl. public transportation) or who have increased their share of multimodal transportation. It will also include citizens who, on the contrary, have had their experience with multimodal transportation, but now rely more on monomodal transportation.
Objectives:
The project aims to:
- identify the reasons for behavioural change towards eco-friendly multi-modal mobility and forecast future potential;
- help make transport in Europe more energy efficient and more environmentally friendly; and
- encourage greener European transport policies.
Methodology:
Factors which have an impact on the choice of transport mode will be analysed. 'Hard factors' (like structural, technological and communication factors) and also 'soft factors' (like socialisation, amenity values of transport and environmental awareness) will be highlighted.
The area of investigation is local and regional transport used by most citizens for their daily travel. This offers a range of possibilities for multi-modal transport and changing of transport modes. If multi-modal transport chains are used, rail should build the backbone of the transport system, while buses, cars and bikes work as feeders to the rail system.
Based on the results of the analysis a measure-mix with the best cost-benefit ratio will be suggested for the medium term and long term to better adapt the transport services being offered and the framework conditions to the customers' needs.
USEMOBILITY will elaborate future scenarios for eco-friendly multi-modal mobility and discuss them with decision makers in politics and transportation companies and also with civil societyorganisations, representing European citizens and passengers. Finally, strategic recommendations for future eco-friendly multi-modal mobility will be elaborated for national target groups and also for the European Commission. The findings will be intensely disseminated by the civil society organisations.
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