Innovative solutions for public authorities and transport operators to improve cross-border mobility and passenger flows
Innovative projects to solve challenges in cross-border commuting
Building on and going beyond the results of WP2 and WP3, this study examined various good and best practice examples of innovative mobility solutions from the Alpine Region and beyond in order to investigate their potential to improve cross-border mobility and passenger flows. As a starting point, the projects were examined in terms of the following characteristics:
- project aims and user benefits
- metropolitan, urban, or rural settlement characteristics
- monocentric, linear, or polycentric commuting structure
- modes of transport
- number of countries involved
- involved stakeholders
- financial, technological, or political success factors
- EU, public, or private funding/investment sources
- intensity of cooperation
As a result, the projects can be categorized into classic projects, innovative projects, and new players in mobility.
From a closer look at the different types of public and private stakeholders, their goals, needs, and motivations as well as their differing levels of interest and influence the following observations ensued:
- EU funding: a majority of projects heavily relies on it and it generally helps to facilitate cooperation between public actors.
- Private actors tend to be active in multiple locations and secure global funding.
- Often, potentials for significant user benefits are independent of public funding or intense cooperation with the public sector as with solutions involving open data, mobile ticketing, or coordination of time tables.
- New players in mobility emerge where user benefits can be directly monetized; here, public regulation is necessary to ensure sustainable service provision.
- When innovative products or services prove their success, they attract significant private investments for replication elsewhere.
- Very close cooperation requires strong political support, economic appeal, and remains rare.
- As they lack short-term results, research or infrastructure projects depend largely on public funding.
In the annex Project Factsheets, comprehensive summaries of the examination’s results for all projects can be found.
Cooperation archetypes anD their potentials
Taking all the above results of examining innovative mobility solutions into account, several project archetypes were deduced to lay out cooperation potentials for public authorities and transport providers.
- Physical Link+: adding a digital attribute or branding to an existing link
- Cross-border cooperation of transport authorities or operators: coordination of time tables or tariffs
- Shared mobility in urban areas: usually provided by private companies for profit
- Shared mobility in rural areas: usually in low-density areas to provide mobility where the public offer is weak or non-existent; require public subsidies; can encourage tourism and stimulate the economy
- Digital solutions: platforms connecting user and service provider; usually no need for infrastructure investments
- Harmonizing standards: to enable seamless access to infrastructure or data networks across borders
- Multimodal hubs: facilitate seamless shift between modes, often including shared mobility services, potential extension to micro-logistics
- Joint ventures: founding a legal entity across borders to formalize and perpetuate relationships
Subsequently, SWOT analyses were carried out for these archetypes of projects aiming at the improvement of cross-border mobility and passenger flows, which can be reviewed in the annex Archetype Factsheets.
Finally, to launch cross-border cooperation in dealing with commuter traffic, the findings of this study laid the foundation for the work in package 6, where potential solutions are discussed and eventually tailored to public authorities and service providers in the hotspots of cross-border commuting in the EUSALP perimeter, already identified in WP2.