Presentation of Transport-on-Demand pilot in Vidzeme Region

A new Transport-on-Demand pilot was launched on 21 October 2019 in two areas of Vidzeme: Alūksne County and Mazsalaca County. The pilot is part of MAMBA project and it was presented during the National Public Transport Council by Līga Puriņa-Purīte, project manager in Vidzeme Planning Region. Participants at the event also received an invitation to test the pilot, and also to asses its usefulness.

Other MAMBA mobility solutions, that will be implemented in Poland and Sweden, were also presented during the event, offering an insight into the full range of possible options when it comes to rural mobility solutions.

Within the framework of the project, it’s planned to activate several different actions to address the problem of mobility. This is based on the inevitable interconnection between depopulation and ever-shrinking public transport in areas where the number of passengers is insufficient. Furthermore, the above-mentioned connections often lead to fewer opportunities to receive services, thus reducing the attractiveness of the countryside as a place of residence and leaving an impact on the economy as a whole.

MAMBA project is carried out by Vidzeme Planning Region, in cooperation with partners from Germany, Poland, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Latvia’s Interreg Baltic Sea Region (BSR) Programme 2014.-2020, with the European Regional Development Fund Co-financing. It aims to improve the availability of mobility services in remote rural areas and the regions affected by demographic change and to improve the capacity of transport service providers. In Latvia, the project is associated with the “Transport on Demand” service in two areas of Vidzeme – Alūksne County municipality and Mazsalaca County municipality, which is one of several different project activities.