The objective of GreenFlexTrans is to develop collective transport through the demonstration of combined mobility solutions for passengers and goods in urban and rural sparsely populated areas. By creating technical and behavioural pre-requisites, the project will allow passengers and goods to carry out efficient point-to-point journeys and deliveries using multiple mobility providers.

Collective means of transport, i.e. national train companies, regional public transport, local car-sharing, are available alongside each other and allow accessibility in most areas in the North Sea Region. Citizens and passengers consider both all journeys "door-to-door" indepdendent of the number of interchanges and are unwilling to search for journey information on separate platforms and systems. In fact, people that are very bound to carry out journeys and order goods to home (i.e. medicine, groceries or tools) using one or few standard means or applications. GreenFlexTrans will have two major focuses within combined mobility:

Firstly, the project will develop, test and demonstrate an application and/or platform for booking, paying and receiving information that allows passengers and goods to carry out multi-modal journeys using multiple mobility providers in the following steps:

• Elaborate technical concept for a standard platform (operative planning system) and/or application (citizen’s tool for administrating journeys and some goods)
• Evaluate legal feasilbity in connecting viritually any mobility provider that conforms to a set of requirements rather than complex contractual structures
• Develop user-friendly adaptive IT/ICT platform and/or application
• Pilot and/or demonstrate project to evaluate the product’s feasibility, in particular in terms of mobility provider participation, user reception and journey planning

The platform shall be applicable to any of the participating countries' language and specific geographic and operative pre-requisites.

Secondly, it will develop the efficiency, flexibility and speed of goods delivery services by collective modes of transport, based on the IT/ICT platform. The project will focus on developing a concept and carry out at least three pilot tests of goods delivery using public transport vehicles, in particular on-demand rural and special transportation minivans that cover sparsely populated areas with an ageing population. In addition, bike transport and car-sharing services will be tested to carry local goods “the last mile” from meeting points or bus stops in urban areas.

The expected outputs include:

1. Robust cooperation platform open to short- and long-term providers of collective transport, organised jointly by the public transport authorities
2. Providers of collective transport will complement each other, rather than compete, which will allow higher accessibility, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of mobility services
3. A platform and application standard, useful also transnationally, will increase the level of satisfaction and usage of collective transport solutions among citizens
4. The increased use of collective transport solutions will provide socio-economic and environmental benefits, i.e. lower emissions, in all parts of the North Sea Region as a result of reduced car dependency
5. Shared and green mobility solutions will be used for delivering passengers and goods in urban and more remotely in rural areas reducing the number of vehicles on the roads

Citizens consider all journeys, be that non-stop or with interchanges, as door-to-door trips and are unwilling or unable to search for journey information on separate platforms and systems. The fact that different providers and modes of collective transport use separate platforms and applications for journeys and goods delivery make planning and implementing trips and deliveries that involve more than one provider complex, unreliable and uncomfortable. A common platform and application for mobility providers and citizens to jointly and efficiently plan personal and small goods transports will significantly increase the attractiveness of collective transport and reduce citizens' perceived car dependency. This will have a positive impact on urban public transport and freight distribution systems in regional and local urban and rural areas and decrease the number of fossil-fueled vehicles on the roads.

All public transport authorities in the programme areas in Northern Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Scotland have or will be offered to join the project. In addition, relevant public transport research institutes, promoters and associations as well as private mobility service and payment system providers are invited.

Any organisation suiting the description above is more than welcome to contact the consortium!