by Samyajit Basu, Senior researcher at MOBI-VUB research centre, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
On 6th October 2020, the INDIMO project organised its first workshop on the deployment of digital mobility services. The 4-hour online workshop was attended by a diverse set of 36 participants that consisted of operators, developers, policy makers, user organizations and researchers in the field of digital mobility and logistic services across Europe.
Objectives
The objective of the workshop was to present and discuss the insights gathered in a series of case studies INDIMO partners have been conducting for the last few months through desktop research and interviews with key stakeholders across Europe in order to identify the most important barriers and drivers to the design, planning, deployment and operation of accessible and inclusive digital personalized mobility and logistics services.
Report
The workshop was divided into two sessions. In the morning session the INDIMO project was introduced and the lessons learned from the case studies were presented.
After the introduction participants were divided into four thematic groups to facilitate discussion on the themes of the four case studies:
- carsharing and ridesharing services
- shared bike and micro-mobility services
- multimodal route planning services and mobility as a service
- smart logistics services
Each thematic group had lively discussions: during the interactive exercise participants reflected upon and prioritized already identified drivers and barriers in the case studies. Through group discussion participants collected additional barriers and strategies to tackle the identified barriers.
During the afternoon session, findings of previous discussions were presented and discussed by groups. A major highlight in the findings was the consensus among experts and practitioners about the importance of co-creation for a successful development and deployment of digital mobility and logistic services. It was noted that inclusion of vulnerable to exclusion groups in the co-creation process and a bottom up flexible approach are absolutely essential for building robust, accessible and inclusive services. Although in this digital age technology holds the key to many solutions, close collaboration among various stakeholders and presence of a clear regulatory framework are equally important.
The workshop wrap up consisted in highlighting how the findings of this workshop will be used to support the development of a digital mobility toolbox in the later stages of the project.
