Mobility Innovations – Only for Cities? | First Rural Mobility Seminar (Riga, Latvia)

The first Rural Mobility Seminar organised by MAMBA on 27 September 2019 in Riga (Latvia), dealt with mobility innovations and whether these are specifically driven by large cities or large private companies. Naturally, such companies invest where they see the biggest market potential, which is usually in cities. Therefore, solutions for rural areas are often spin-offs of local, sometimes non-commercial initiatives and come to satisfy different demand patterns. They are indeed possible, yet they are hampered by various obstacles. Many of them are structural or legal constraints (just think of the legal barriers to non-commercial car-sharing or combining people-to-service and service-to-people). Another major issue is that too often, innovations tried and tested in the urban context are applied one-on-one to rural regions (where they do not reach their full potential) instead of developing genuine rural approaches. These and further issues, were discussed throughout the seminar.

The report of the seminar can be found here.

 

The Rural Mobility Seminar Series has been developed by MAMBA as an event series that reflects current trends and challenges of rural mobility. Each seminar is dedicated to one specific topic and is open for researchers, local decision makers, transport and mobility professionals interested in exchanging and networking around new perspectives on rural mobility.