Cities across Europe have been experiencing the emergence of new residential areas further away from the urban centres. These offer better facilities for families in the form of larger, cleaner and greener living areas. However, the downside of this urban sprawl includes increased traffic congestion, social isolation, and lack of services and businesses in the new areas.
The lack of efficient and easy transportation and logistics in these areas mean that consumers cannot access or afford their preferred services. This mainly affects about 25% of EU’s population with limited mobility, especially the elderly and young people without driver’s licenses and/or cars. For the more mobile consumers, the total annual cost of car usage to access stores and services in Finland alone is estimated at €3.5 Billion. Extrapolated to the entire EU, this amounts to over €300 Billion.
The overall objective of the TownHall24 project is to provide physical spaces, placed in the heart of local communities that is combined with a digital service platform, to connect people to physical and digital services that are currently not readily available to them locally.