COVID 19 pandemic has shown a disruptive impact on society and, naturally, in the transport sector, affecting overall mobility demand and how users will select their transport mode. For instance, public transport could suffer a reputational hit that lasts beyond the pandemic and putting even more pressure on road infrastructure and traffic impacts as the economy returns to pre-crisis levels.
The challenge of green and accessible mobility for everyone is becoming more complex. It is essential to provide attractive fares, safe payment systems and reliable, updated information, notably about occupancy and comfort levels, to incentivize passengers in selecting more sustainable mobility choices. ICT tools also have a fundamental role in promoting alternative solutions such as micromobility. Typical examples are real-time location, new forms of payment, integrated services, and real-time environmental conditions. Electric mobility also gained additional importance to promote more sustainable mobility in individual vehicles when public transport alternatives or soft mobility are not viable. In this field, ICT tools are vital to support fleet management, interoperability, information, and payment systems.
Four main experience exchange events and six stakeholders meetings will be organized to address specific themes of regional interest focused on how CISMOB regions have been addressing the impact of the pandemic. These events will consider the geographical scale, social and technological context of each region. Stockholm University will serve as an advisory partner supporting PPs to implement ICT solutions in the Public Sector, benefiting from its background experience and location in the innovative northern context.
But, what are the policy instruments addressed?
In Portugal, the University of Aveiro and Municipality of Agueda will continue to focus on the Sustainable Mobility Strategy of Agueda. The CISMOB topic is also relevant to the new Operational Programme of the Centro Region (new funding framework). Climate action and digitization will be essential components of the OP. However, it is necessary to rethink and improve program management in mobility, taking into account a new pandemic context, with unprecedent consequences. Although the programme is not yet officially launched, the timing of CISMOB activities is ideal for improving its management and maximizing the implementation of new projects (calls expected to open in the second half of 2022) based on learning from the additional year of CISMOB activities (expected changes type 1 and 2).
Romanian Partners will focus on the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) of the Bucharest-Ilfov Region. It is not a completely new instrument, as it was already mentioned when TPBI entered the project replacing BMTA. The management, monitoring and update of the SUMP are completely under the authority of TPBI (type 2 change). The new ROP for 2021-2027 is still under development, and we do not foresee a possibility to directly influence it.
In Spain, PP6 will focus on improving the governance of Regional Strategy to promote the electric vehicle in Extremadura (2018 - 2030). This ambitious regional strategy focused on e-mobility has several aspects in which the ICT has a fundamental role in maximizing the efficiency, attractiveness and interoperability of various forms of e-mobility. PP6 hopes to improve this policy instrument's governance, for example, by rethinking environmental and energy objectives in a new mobility paradigm.
