Globalisation, mobile and sharing economic trends increased the need for mobility. Urban sprawl and dispersed land-use patterns strengthened individual mobility behaviours, particularly in rural/low-demand areas, consolidating the car dominant role. Car occupancy rate for commuting trips in EU is about 1.1 people per vehicle, impacting congestion, energy consumption, environment.
Ride Sharing enabled by digital tools can be effective and should be encouraged for reducing the distance travelled by private vehicles and high-capacity transport feeder. A set of barriers (poor awareness of services, lack of trust and willingness to ride with strangers, low flexibility in scheduling) limit the Ride Sharing market uptake. If properly developed, ride sharing can reduce the number of single-occupancy vehicles. RIDE2RAIL exploited intelligent mobility approaches making Ride Sharing a feeder for mass transport services in low density/rural areas, deviating current demand from individual to collective mobility, improving transport accessibility. The Ride Sharing-public transport integration was achieved integrating/harmonizing real-time and information, facilitating the choice between multiple options classified by a set of user-centric criteria.
RIDE2RAIL designed, developed and tested in real demos (Padua, Brno, Athens, Helsinki) a set of software components developed in S2R IP4.
The feedback given by more than 100 demo participants generated data on their potential trips through the use of RIDE2RAIL service, both in terms of the Travel Companion and the Driver Companion apps. The demographics of the participants was spread equally across all ages, gender and employment status. Over 2,000 trips were organised, including 170 trips completed as multi-occupancy vehicle trips. Reflecting the needs of specific demo sites, an extremely high number (75% or more) were commuter trips; many involved travel to/from urban areas. Usability of the apps was rated by demo participants using the standardised System Usability Scale. The Driver companion scored 58% and the Travel Companion 57% (good usability for a demonstration app). Quick, reliable and cheap journeys were the most important categories, thus validating the findings of the literature review+conversational surveys performed at the project beginning. A comparison survey in April 2023, conducted in the area around Newcastle has demonstrated that the RIDE2RAIL concept of combining ridesharing with public transport is viewed positively in comparison to private car ownership. 77% of responses indicated that they would use the service, with 37% using it several times a month. This compares favourably with other forms of traditional and future (autonomous) shared travel services. These outputs have been tied to an impact analysis with stakeholders from local authorities, public transit and academia in the 4 demo sites, demonstrating that significant benefits of RIDE2RAIL lie in its potential for increasing public transit ridership and increasing rail connectivity.
