NABOGO App is becoming more popular in Vejle

Share your car with your neighbour!

After a successful launch on 9 September 2019 Vejle municipality, partner of the MAMBA project, continues promoting their pilot in the Smidstrup-Skærup village area. Posters advertising the NABOGO App have been placed in strategic spots around the area, in order to familiarise people with it and encourage them to use it. Furthermore, a clip showcasing the destinations available through the app has been produced and distributed.

The aim of the app is to enhance mobility and it comes as a response to the lack of public transport in rural areas, where buses do not travel as often as it would be necessary. Another aim is to reduce traffic jams and encourage people to share their cars with others travelling in the same area.

Anyone can register as a user and share their car with other passengers on their daily commute. The app can also be used by people who do not own a car, but instead, it can be used to look for a ride – be it for the daily commute or for a weekly trip to Vejle city centre.

NABOGO app was developed in collaboration between Vejle Municipality, NABOGO ApS and Sydtrafik.

 

MAMBA project at European mobility week

Trelleborg Municipality kicked off the European Mobility week by giving a presentation of the MAMBA project. The presentation took place at the city hall, in front of the municipality’s officials.  The Trelleborg team will be active during the whole European Mobility Week and will also present their pilot with the school buses and their idea of a mobility centre, in the form of a coworking space. During the week the team will be sharing information about the project at the local library and town square.

Another event that will be part of European Mobility Week is the launch of a new rental service for cargo bikes, part of the digital mobility centre. With the help of the platform and the cargo bikes opportunity, the Trelleborg MAMBA partner hopes to promote a new sustainable alternative to conventional transport and also to start a dialogue with the citizens, by offering them the opportunity to ask questions and come with suggestions and ideas.

 

European Mobility Week has aimed to better public health and quality of life by advocating clean mobility and sustainable urban transport, since 2002. The initiative offers people the opportunity to explore the role of city streets and to experiment with practical solutions to tackle urban challenges, such as air pollution. This year, the focus of the campaign that takes place between 16 and 22 September is on safe walking and cycling and consists of a number of activities taking place in cities around Europe.

NABOGO launch in Vejle

Share your car with your neighbour!

On 9 September 2019 Vejle municipality, partner of the MAMBA project, launched their pilot in the Smidstrup-Skærup village area. The initiative consists of the app NABOGO, and it aims to enhance mobility and comes as a response for the lack of public transport in rural areas, where buses do not travel as often as it would be necessary. Another aim is to reduce traffic jams and encourage people to share their cars with others going in the same area. 

Anyone can register as a user and share their car with other passengers on their daily commute. The app can also be used by people who do not own a car, but instead, it can be used to look for a ride – be it for the daily commute or a weekly trip to Vejle city centre.

Drivers who decide to use the app can also get a sticker for the car with the text “I am part of NABOGO – do you want to drive?”, to be spotted easier and to make the trips safer. 

NABOGO app was developed in collaboration between Vejle Municipality, NABOGO ApS and Sydtrafik.

School buses for those who already graduated

Trelleborg Municipality has been working on using existing resources in new useful and creative ways. Together with the department for social services and the manager for the municipality’s school buses, they have managed to create a platform and a new form of activity for the elderly. The initiative aims to facilitate mobility without using a car, but rather by employing transportation that the municipality already has access to. This collaboration between different departments resulted in a one day trip with the school buses, that took place on the 7 September, 2019, and was attended by eleven elderly people.

Since the buses are not active during the weekends they become the perfect resources for transporting the elderly during day trips. It doesn’t require any hefty investment of new infrastructure or transportation. The planning and organizing of the trips can be done quite easily since there are already people within the municipality who work with similar tasks. Such initiatives Day trips don’t only increase the mobility for elderly, but they also alleviate the problem of loneliness and exclusion, and also make rural areas within the municipality more accessible.

MAMBA project at Rural Researchers event in Ähtäri

On 22 August 2019, MAMBA partner from South Ostrobothnia (Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences and Regional Council of South Ostrobothnia) presented MAMBA project at the annual Rural Researchers event in Ähtäri, Finland. The event was organised by Maaseudun Uusi Aika (MUA), The Finnish Society for Rural Research and Development in collaboration with the Rural Parliament (ROAD project-RURAL Opinions, Advocacy and Development (ROAD)). This year’s topic was Target: Rural, and it attracted nearly 90 developers and researchers.

The event brings together different workgroups that are particularly crucial for sharing research results, introducing projects and discussing with fellow researchers and developers. This year there were eight different workgroups, with MAMBA team participating in the rural transport group. Seven presentations provided different perspectives on rural transport, organising traffic in archipelago, mobility and transportation in planning services and sharing economy and mobility in rural areas. MAMBA team’s focus was to present the background and planning process of the South Ostrobothnia Mobility Centre model for the workgroup.

MUA promotes and develops Finnish rural research, rural development work and Interaction between rural researchers and developers. It also participates in rural policy and social discussion. Rural Researcher event is a multidisciplinary event for researchers and developers. The purpose of the annual meeting is to bring together rural researchers and developers. The researchers provide insight into rural processes and phenomena. Developers, on the other hand, seek to increase the vitality of the countryside trough networks and projects. More information on the event and presentations; www.mua.fi

Combining Rural Mobility and Co-Working in Södra Åby

The MAMBA partners develop nine innovative Mobility Centers in different parts of the Baltic Sea Region. While they differ in format and scope and cover a broad spectrum of organisational setups, the MAMBA Mobility Centers have one thing in common: by fostering cooperation of administrative stakeholders, transport operators or citizen initiatives, the nine Mobility Centers pool resources, create synergies and thus improve accessibility and mobility in rural areas.

In MAMBA, the Municipality of Trelleborg develops both a digital and an “offline” Mobility Center. While the former is already up and running, the latter is currently being developed and tested. What makes Trelleborg’s Mobility Center special is its emphasis on accessibility, which is a key principle of MAMBA. For us, mobility is not just about getting from A to B, but we address the topic from a holistic perspective which includes the accessibility of services in rural contexts. Against this background, the Trelleborg Mobility Center combines both a co-working space and mobility. By integrating different mobility solutions, the Trelleborg Mobility Center thus caters to the integrated perspective of MAMBA:

  1. The co-working space at the core of the Trelleborg Municipality Mobility Center allows for office jobs in the country side, located close to people’s homes which reduces travels and keeps the municipality’s villages lively.
  2. In the longer run, the Mobility Center shall also offer mobility services and access to related information. For instance, the local MAMBA partner currently works on establishing a bicycle sharing station that should be integrated in the Mobility Center.


In Södra Åby, at the periphery of Trelleborg Municipality, such a co-working space Mobility Center has just opened. Run by a not-for-profit village association, the goal of this initiative is to develop the countryside, while also limiting the number of commuters to other bigger neighbouring cities and putting less pressure on the infrastructure of the region. Södra Åby is an ideal place for this kind of Mobility Center as there is an active community group that already coordinated different activities in the past. Moreover, working together with local groups made it easier and faster to open up the co-working space since trust and established communication channels with inhabitants already exist. For the time being, the goal is to open the co-working space every Friday, as this is the day of the week with the highest demand among locals. Therefore, an active member of the Södra Åby community has been hired as Mobility Center supersvisor in order to ensure reliability of the service, support outreach activities and act as contact person for the Mobility Center users.

In Södra Åby this unique Mobility Center concept that integrates both accessibility and mobility in a very tangible manner will be further tested and developed throughout the remaining project lifetime. At the same time, a long-term strategy will be developed to organise the “post-MAMBA” setup of the Mobility Center. Building upon strong community life and above-average commitment of local citizens, the Södra Åby Mobility Center has the chance to become a project that benefits not only local citizens, but can inspire rural populations all over the Baltic Sea Region to tackle mobility and accessibility issues in their region.

(VIDEO) Innovative business models for rural mobility: MAMBA Webinar #1

On the 29th of May, MAMBA project, together with Nordregio, organised the first webinar focused on rural mobility issues and how these can be improved.

If you didn’t have the chance to join the discussion but are interested in the topic, now you can watch the video and find out innovative business ideas regarding rural mobility!

Innovative business models for rural mobility: MAMBA Webinar #1 from Nordregio on Vimeo.

MAMBA at the 10th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region

The 10th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region 2019 took place on 12 and 13 June 2019, in Gdańsk (Poland). On the second day of the event, Aleksandra Chrystowska-O’Shea, representative from the Bielsko-Biala Regional Development Agency represented MAMBA in a session on accessibility and demographic change in the Baltic Sea Region, which was co-hosted by various international mobility and accessibility projects such as BSR Access, MARA or cities.multimodal. The forum meant to bring together projects working on solutions for mobility and accessibility challenges in both urban and rural settings and how shared mobility can contribute to improved accessibility under different spatial contexts. The first part of the session consisted of several five-minute pitches covering a broad spectrum of perspectives on the topic, and in the second part, a lively discussion on accessibility challenges in the Baltic Sea Region and beyond followed.

 

Sixth trans-national partner meeting in the capital of space

The City of Seinäjoki has launched itself recently as a capital of space. As inhabitants of the capital of space, we wanted to show to our MAMBA guests where this idea came from and took on our first day of project meeting a bus to Ilmajoki municipality, about 20 km from Seinäjoki. When admiring the wide plains from the bus window everyone understood that space does not only stand for outer space – but there is lot of space everywhere in South Ostrobothnia. Lot of space for dreams and possibilities – but all this space sets also its challenges for the rural mobility.

The challenges and possibilities of rural mobility, the key elements of the MAMBA project, awakened once again lively discussions during the project meeting. As the MAMBA project partners are now in the process of planning and creating the regional Mobility Centres in close cooperation with the stakeholders, the meeting was a good opportunity to clarify different Mobility Centre concepts and get valuable feedback on own plans from the other project partners. At these phase of the MAMBA project the pilot actions are also either actively running or to be launched in the near future in different regions. Sharing experiences, feedback, and discussing challenges or problems regarding pilot actions were a crucial part of the meeting, since it is important that we all learn from each other. Sharing knowledge and working together towards common goals is what the whole MAMBA project is about and it is great to see how we are moving forward sometimes slowly but always firmly.

 

The South Ostrobothnia Folk High School’s premises in Ilmajoki created peaceful but yet inspiring atmosphere for the first day of project meeting.

Roll out of the Transport-on-Demand services in Latvia are progressing, despite challenges

Vidzeme Planning Region (Latvia) actively continues to work on the implementation of the Transport on Demand (ToD) service in two municipalities of Vidzeme region – in Alūksne and Mazsalaca counties. Initially, the project team predicted the launch of the service by the beginning of the summer of 2019, but currently the planned activities are delayed due to objective circumstances.

Līga Puriņa-Purīte who is the project manager of MAMBA in Latvia explains: “In this cross-border project, we have taken a strong desire to pilot one of the flexible transport services known as a “transport on demand”. It has been running in several countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world already for at least 20 years, but not only for Latvia, but for many countries it is still a less-known solution. Admittedly, the regulatory framework in Latvia is inflexible and is currently not well suited for introducing new solutions for the transportation of people and not even for testing a new solution. We have thought how to implement the ToD so that it does not conflict with Latvian law. A lot of time and work has required to coordinate plans and to wait for permission from both responsible authorities in Latvia and international organizations. We have dealt with the issue with all parties involved and at different levels – with lawyers, transport and procurement specialists, carriers, municipal management, Road Transport Administration and Transport Minister of Latvia. Although not as smooth as hoped, however, the process is moving forward, and we are working to make the inhabitants of Alūksne and Mazsalaca county trying the ToD service during the 2019.”

In order to implement the ToD service, a special software will be developed that will be the main tool for registering users of the service. The main tasks consists of creating routes, pass on additional information additional to the driver of the vehicle (such as the need to pick up a passenger at the place of residence, the necessity of car seat for children, etc.), as well as the driver will be able to mark the booked trip as accomplished when the passenger has reached his or her destination successfully.

In mid-May, the software procurement procedure was completed and in mid-June, software development work will be launched, with the first version being tested one month after the contract was signed. The software will be tested in action and tailored to the needs of users.

In parallel, work is underway on the development of documentation for the procurement of the ToD passenger service and application is planned to be announced in the beginning of June.

Meanwhile, the Mobility Center Coordinator has already started the work. The coordinator is closely related to the ToD pilots and will be responsible for communicating with the citizens and working with the software, registering users, creating routes, and contacting the driver about the booked trips. The special telephone line has been created and people from pilots’ areas as well as other who may have any questions about the planned service can call already to find everything they would like to know already in advance. Some of locals have expressed the interest and registered themselves as the service users to be ready for their first “transport on demand” trip as soon as possible.

For more information, please contact Ms Līga Puriņa-Purīte ([email protected]), manager of MAMBA project in Vidzeme Planning Region (Latvia)