The EUSALP Annual Forum 2018 took place on 20-21 November 2018 in Innsbruck. True to its motto "shaping.future.together. with the next generation" the AG4 involved young high school students in its workshop and fostered close collaboration with the CIPRA Youth Council.
NETWORKING VILLAGE
Information stand shared by EUSALP AG4 and CIPRA Youth Council
The EUSALP Networking Village aimed at showing concrete results of EUSALP to an interested public. The AG4 shared an information stand together with the members of the CIPRA Youth Council who presented the “Youth Alpine Interrail ticket“. The ticket enabled 100 selected young people in the summer of 2018 to travel sustainably across the Alps by rail for 50 euros during one month. Routes, experiences and pictures were shared at the stand. To keep the initiative alive, the follow-up project “Alpine Ticket Networking Meeting” will enter into dialogue with the main stakeholders to develop a single ticket for young people using public transport across the seven Alpine countries at an affordable price. The idea was selected the winning project against 16 other applications of the EUSALP “Pitch Your Project to the EU” contest, awarded at the closing plenary of the Forum.
The AG4 presented in a poster format an overview of existing pricing components that influence the competitiveness between road and rail freight transport. The analysis investigates pricing components like energy taxation, car taxations, infrastructure charges and subsidies. The poster is already available for download while the full study will be published by December 2018.
A journey through the Alpine Region
Interactive game and exchange with politicians on cross-border mobility with high school students
"A journey through the Alpine Region” is a game in which the players have to find the fastest, cheapest and most sustainable way of travelling by public transport from A to B within the Alpine Region on a given date. The aim of this interactive workshop was to identify the state of the art of cross-border travel information services for public transport with the expectations of today’s digital generation in mind. [See presentation below]
One of the core findings of the workshops was that the coordination and harmonisation of cross-border travel information, timetables and ticketing services still needs significant improvement. Information on routes, travel times and prices vary between the different service providers, making it difficult to find the best travel solution meeting the expectations of the user. The results were discussed together with Ingrid Felipe, the Tyrolean Vice-President and regional councilor for mobility.
The ideas, visions and proposals of young people living in the Alpine Region are an important input in shaping future mobility, especially in the field of sustainable modes given the fact that mobility of the young generation under the age of 18 is highly dependent on public transport. The youth of today is highly interconnected both physically and digitally, are used to having constant access to up to date information and hence expect easy-to-use access to mobility services. At the same time, mobility behaviour is changing towards less car dependency and driving licenses are obtained at a later age compared to previous generations.
Interconnecting public transport information and ticketing was an activity identified in the AG4 work plan and will be a focus topic also in the 2019 EUSALP Italian Presidency. A project proposal for harmonising the different existing traveler information services (TIS) providing seamless cross-border, door-to-door travel information is under development.
Cross-border mobility in the Alpine Region
Joint workshop between organised by AG4 and AG5
Cross-border mobility is one of the strategic initiatives of the Actions Groups (AGs) 4 and 5 of EUSALP. Both AGs have teamed together and applied for the Alpine Region Preparatory Action Fund (ARPAF) project CrossBorder. Ingrid Felipe, Tyrol’s Vice-President and councilor responsible for mobility, opened the workshop by highlighting the importance of establishing international partnerships and cooperation that cross borders. Sustainable mobility in particular relies on seamless connections and a “borderless” vision in order to ensure accessibility and connectivity of all EUSALP residents, including the remotest regions.
Prof. Tobias Chilla (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) presented the first results of the ARPAF project, having mapped cross-border commuter flows in regions where this issue is most acute. The Alpine Region accounts for approximately half of the cross-border commuter flows across the European Union and is thus a fitting pilot region for developing solutions to make cross-border commuting more sustainable. [See presentation below]
A selection of existing cooperation models in the Alpine Region is presented in an online story map produced by CrossBorder project partner CIPRA International. The overview shows the variety of initiatives, from travel information to carpooling and the introduction of new cross-border train services.
The ARPAF project builds on lessons learned from previous projects such as PEMO which involved a wide number of employers in the Lake Constance region to foster sustainable commuter mobility, as Wolfgang Pfefferkorn explained. [See presentation below]
A personal account to the topic was given by Magdalena Christandl who presented the initiative Youth Alpine Interrail (yoalin) having travelled the Alps by train for several weeks with one single ticket for 50 €. [See presentation below]
The challenges of ticketing and the potentials of digitilisation in mobility were also addressed in the roundtable discussion moderated by AG5 co-leader Thomas Egger (SAB). Digitilisation expert Prof. Carnevale Maffé (SDA Bocconi School of Management) drew on the importance of exchanging data, for example for creating single multimodal travel invoicing when getting from A to B, irrespective of the transport mode used. In the near future, solutions for the last mile for rural transport could include electric on-demand shuttles that are shared in order to make mobility more efficient and sustainable. The need to decarbonise transport is essential, especially in the sensitive Alpine environment, and relevant actors should reap the benefits of digitilisation and apply them to develop integrated mobility systems.
