Demographic change, an ageing population and limited public finances, endanger the accessibility of services, goods and social life in many rural areas in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR). It is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure not only individual "people-to-service" mobility, but also the supply of "service-to-people" mobility (e.g. home care for elderly or various delivery services) in these sparsely populated regions. The MAMBA project aims to improve both dimensions of mobility through a number of activities.
Evaluating and transferring existing mobility services
The MAMBA consortium will evaluate existing, sustainable ways of managing and financing rural mobility that could be transferred to other regions. Good practice examples will be presented to public authorities, transport and service providers, and civil society through a public database and a rural mobility compendium.
Establishing Mobility Centres as testbeds for integrated rural mobility
Mobility Centres (MCs) will be established in ten rural areas in the Baltic Sea region. The MCs will address specific mobility needs in each area by for example:
- enhancing management capacities in transport administration;
- providing digital and non-digital information systems for residents;
- creating platforms for public and private enterprises to pool transport services; and
- facilitating cooperation between public transport actors and private service providers.
New mobility solutions, such as rural car sharing, transport on demand (ToD), ride sharing applications, and mobility as a service (MaaS) will also be initiated by the MCs as pilot actions.
Involving users to improve the design of new solutions
Finally, MAMBA aims to include users and civil society organisations in the development of sustainable mobility solutions. Seminars and workshops at the local level will promote participation and result in a manual for self-organised mobility, addressing grass-roots initiatives throughout the Baltic Sea Region. Findings regarding legal, economic and socio-cultural barriers against certain mobility solutions will be pointed out to policy-makers at the regional and national levels through a separate guidance document.
Nordregio's role
Nordregio is leading work package 2: Creating an analytical framework for rural mobility and accessibility solutions, and contributes to the implementation of a number of other project tasks. Nordregio is also responsible for coordinating communications and dissemination of MAMBA results.
The MAMBA website will be launched in March 2018: www.mambaproject.eu