The MOVE project (Mobility Opportunities Valuable to Everybody) is an Interreg V ‘North Sea Region’ project that is managed by the HZ University of Applied Sciences (m.tempelman@hz.nl). It runs from September 2018 until August 2021.
The project is cofinanced by the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRD) under grant agreement No J-No.: 38-2-2-18.
MOVE is run by a consortium of 11 partners from 5 European countries: HZ University of Applied Sciences (NL), Universiteit Gent (BE), Gemeente Middelburg (NL), Intergemeentelijke vereniging voor ontwikkeling van het GEwest Mechelen en Omgeving (BE), Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen (DE), Gate21 (DK), The Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership (UK), NHS Highland (UK), Advier (NL), Landkreis Northeim (DE), Zweckverband Verkehrsverbund Sud-Niedersachsen (DE).
Project description
Semi-rural areas are often excluded from new or green mobility initiatives like car and bike sharing, Uber and large scale 0-emissions transport. Long distances and too few users make these too costly or simply not feasible, so many people use cars. Those who cannot afford/use cars are less likely to get a job or will leave to go to cities. This results in a vicious circle making these areas less attractive for business, or partnerships with big companies from the transport sector. Local authorities in turn often struggle in finding the capacity in staff and financing for green and flexible solutions, which remain heavily subsidised and are not always efficient: an empty electric bus does not reduce overall emissions, and the users’ needs are still not answered.
Objectives
To solve these issues, MOVE has 3 objectives:
MOVE will take on a new approach in developing innovative and sustainable mobility initiatives through co-creation, bringing together local authorities, knowledge centres, local economic players and (temporary) inhabitants.
MOVE will use local specificities to create practical solutions in 4 pilots based on unlikely combinations, with tangible business plans, to be implemented, tested, and evaluated. This aims at increasing accessibility, reducing individual cars use, emissions and costs.
MOVE will share its best practices in sustainable mobility and governance to increase take-up in other regions and support the greening of the transport sector and stimulate rural areas in the NSR as a whole.
Role of Ghent University
Design and develop generic tools to support the regional pilot activities.
Co-design, test and analyse the activities of the pilots in a standardized and comparable manner.
Support valorisation of the project and pilot results
