Improved rail connections and smart mobility in Central Europe
CONNECT2CE aims at tackling the weak accessibility of regional, peripheral and cross-border areas of Central Europe to/from the main regional/national/EU transport networks and hubs, caused by the long lasting phenomenon of urbanisation, as a consequence of which rural population has been steadily decreasing, leading to lower density and sparsely populated rural and peripheral areas, where efficient public transport (PT) is challenging. CONNECT2CE will enhance the qualitative and quantitative understanding and the awareness of present and future regional public transport systems in CE and endow project partners, authorities and regional PT operators with tools and skills to shape their PT policies. Ultimately, this will improve the capacities of the public sector in CE to efficiently plan peripheral and cross-border public transport systems.
CONNECT2CE will do so by elaborating harmonised and coordinated strategies and tools to be mainstreamed and implemented at regional and cross border level through pilot actions, in three areas all connected and intertwined to each other and all being essential elements that contribute to the enhancement of PT services of peripheral/PSCs, harmonisation of multimodal timetables, regional and cross-border rail services); 2) Integrated ticketing and tariff schemes (integration of regional and cross border multimodal tickets will be tested and implemented for the first time); 3) Implementation of the most efficient and innovative ICT tools on info-mobility.
These outputs will be developed at transnational level, as common solutions to common problems. They need to be jointly elaborated. This approach will be applied throughout the duration of the project, by the active participation of all PPs in all WPs applying the elaborated transnational strategies and action plans at regional and cross-border level, combining transport and territorial development.