GetMobil - combining ride sharing with public transport in rural areas

GetMobil

New concepts like ride sharing and the interconnection of public transport with ride sharing include the following:

• How can ride sharing enhance mobility in rural landscapes?
• Can there be a connection between public transport and private ride shares?
• What are the opportunities and barriers for ride sharing?

These questions and others will be the focus of the scientific project GetMobil since April 2015.

Using public transport efficiently

Due to demographic changes and expenditure cuts, public transport cannot be guaranteed in many regions and at all times. Ride sharing could provide effective solutions for needed and sustainable mobility.

Understanding and promoting ride sharing

GetMobil also researches how mobility can be ensured in rural areas. For that, traditional modes of public transport shoud be linked to private individual traffic. This could offer people without cars some mobility while saving unnecessary rides and concomitant emissions. Hence, GetMobil provides to the transformation to a more sustainable economy. The project elaborates on how to motivate clients to use ride sharing.

Behavioural change

The interdisciplinary team of scientists works with practitioners, such as the association for traffic in northern Hessia (Nordhessischen VerkehrsVerbund (NVV)) to identify factors that determine current traffic behavior and how to foster behavioural change. This actor-based approach relies on a mix ofoverlapping methods: questionnare, lab experiments, actor-based computer modelling, law analysis and real experiments (“Mobility 2.0”.)

Developing mobility 2.0

With „Mobility,“ the association for traffic in northern Hessia implemented an approach in which private ride shares are combined with public transport in three pilot regions.

The insights that are derived from the project GetMobil shall lead to recommendations for improved mobility,  which can be implemented within the project duration (real experiment “Mobility 2.0). The results and acceptance of this upgraded offer will be evalutated with the help of a pre- and a post-questionnaire. Thus“Mobility” shall be further developed and applied to other ride share approaches.