CISMOB was one of the Interreg Projects invited to participate in the Workshop organized by the OptiTrans Project. The workshop took place in L'Aquila, Italy, and it consisted of two main sessions: "Use of ICT to react in real-time to fluctuating demand: existing barriers and next steps”, on April 18th, and “Rural-urban linkage development approach: the role of public transport in the Abruzzo’s Strategy for Rural Areas”, on April 19th.
The focus of the workshop was gathering information on best practices to promote sustainable and smart mobility, not only in urban, but especially in rural and suburban areas. There was a general consensus on two mobility-related topics: open data and mobility as a service. Participants raised some concerns, but also discussed the potential benefits that open data can bring to improve mobility services, highlighting the need for open data regulations. Smart city initiatives for infomobility in the city of L'Aquila were presented and discussed, such as the project BusOnAir. In Italy, there are some regions with an integrated ticketing system in the form of a smart card, which provides interoperated transfers and already proved to be a success, since public transport companies have been increasing their passenger numbers. Moreover, ICT application tools such as MyCicero were presented and the results point to an increase of users of the smart mobility platform. CISMOB's presentation focused on all the best practices learnt during the interregional cooperation and it kept the attention of all participants.
This exchange of experience event was very interesting, with many speakers sharing their vision and projects to improve quality of life of citizens in terms of mobility.
