Project description
On the road to mobility solutions
For those suffering from transport poverty, every journey can be a battle against high costs. The EU-funded HiReach project is tackling transport poverty by developing new mobility solutions for vulnerable user groups. By bundling and mixing non-coordinated trip requests, HiReach will create inclusive and easily replicable community transport services, ridesharing, and minibus-pooling schemes that are affordable and accessible. To achieve this goal, the project is leveraging mobile information technologies and social innovations, using open tools, technology transfer and startup development techniques. The project is also fostering social innovation by involving different social groups in the co-creation and testing of proposed solutions. Finally, to ensure the scalability of new business models, HiReach will provide open-source tools, guidance and funding to developers.
Objective
HiReach aims to eliminate transport poverty by triggering new mobility solutions sustained by products scaling up on mixed needs, backed by mobile information technologies and social innovations, using open tools, technology transfer and startup development techniques to find and exploit new business ideas that reach low accessibility social groups and areas.
HiReach builds on the potential of bundling and mixing dispersed, special and non-coordinated/optimised trip requests and needs from different vulnerable user groups to favour inclusive and participated vs. exclusive/special and geographically-limited mobility. By combining different attributes of available transport concepts and bottom-up initiatives with new operational schemes and IT applications, HiReach will explore viable business models for small scale, modular and easily replicable mobility services (e.g. community transport services, ridesharing, minibus pooling, etc.) that can be provided at affordable prices and/or with minimum subsidies.
HiReach fosters social innovation processes through an in depth (micro)analysis of capabilities and attitudes of different social groups and their direct involvement as co-users and co-owners of the proposed solutions. Their involvement will be put in relation with the HiReach mechanism for exploring, generating and testing new solutions which is based on the creative work of startups and innovative entrepreneurs.
To secure the validation and scaling-up of new business models, HiReach will provide open source tools, guidance and targeted funding to developers as well as testbeds for new inclusive mobility solutions jointly prepared by startups, policy makers and local communities. The legislative and regulative adaptation of newly developed collaborative economy solutions will be also assessed in order to find the right balance between peer-to-peer/self-produced vs commercially operated services, including the role of marketplace providers.
Fields of science
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managemententrepreneurship
- social sciencessocial geographytransportsocial aspects of transport
- social sciencessociologysocial issuessocial inequalities
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- social sciencessocial geographytransportpublic transport
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
20141 Milano
Italy
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.