Enhancing Mobility For All: Affordable, Reliable, And Accessible Multimodal Transport For Inclusive Rural And Urban Connectivity – Societal Readiness Pilot

Proposals should address all of the following outcomes:

• Strategies, best practices and innovative solutions are made available to local authorities and actors to improve the availability, accessibility, and affordability of rural-urban transport and provide rural and urban populations in a vulnerable situation with better access to services and opportunities;
• Integrated multimodal solutions, which ensure seamless transitions between rural and urban transport modes improving first- and last-mile connectivity, are piloted and related implementation plans are developed for/by local authorities and transport operators;
• Responsiveness to a deeper understanding of the needs and concerns of diverse social group involved in or potentially affected by the R&I development, thereby increasing the potential for beneficial societal uptake, and building trust in results and outcomes. Development of options for behavioural change towards healthier, safer and more sustainable mobility and lifestyles in rural and urban populations in a vulnerable situation.

EU policies, such as the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy and the European Green Deal, emphasise the need for inclusive, efficient, accessible and sustainable transport systems that leave no one behind. Transport poverty refers to individuals’ and households’ inability or difficulty to meet the costs of private or public transport, or their lack of or limited access to transport needed for their access to essential socioeconomic services and activities. Considering the national and spatial context, transport poverty affects both rural and underserved urban areas. Addressing this challenge requires innovative multimodal transport solutions which integrate various modes efficiently, leveraging digitalisation, shared mobility, and demand-responsive transport to enhance affordability, reliability, and accessibility, thereby ensuring Mobility as a Right.

Proposals should address all the following aspects:

• Building on the outcome of previous calls and existing knowledge (e.g. SMARTA-NET^[1], the study on Novel policy ideas for a shift to low-carbon mobility^[2], the study on Transport poverty: definitions, indicators, determinants, and mitigation strategies^[3] and other relevant EU-funded projects^[4]), and drawing on the feedback experience of existing innovative mobility solutions (e.g. SMARTA-NET Catalogue of rural shared mobility solutions^[5]), investigate strategies to enhance availability and accessibility of sustainable and inclusive transport services in sparsely populated regions with limited transport options.
• Analyse the demand for mobility services in regions and communities affected by transport poverty and investigate which drivers could facilitate transport users in a vulnerable situation (including consideration of gender disparities in mobility and access to transport) to use public transport or other shared mobility options (including e.g. underutilised regional and secondary rail lines or feeder services to main rail corridors).
• Develop new sustainable and inclusive integrated multimodal solutions that ensure seamless transitions between rural and urban transport modes, improving first- and last-mile connectivity. Solutions should focus on vulnerable and low-income households (including consideration of gender disparities in mobility and access to transport), and should combine, in an optimal (economic, social, environmental, and operational) way, the various modal transport offers to go beyond forced car ownership. Developing new digital platforms is out of the scope of this topic.
• Each proposal must include pilot demonstrations in at least 4 pilot sites. The pilot demonstrations must cover 4 different areas across the EU and Associated Countries ensuring geographical balance and diversity of issues addressed (e.g. presence or not of transport services such as regional trains, frequency of services, population density). Each proposed issue must be addressed in at least two pilots. The pilots must be community-driven, carried out under the lead or with the involvement of rural/local/regional public authorities/administrations and the local transport authorities, and these entities must be included in the consortium as beneficiaries.
• Elaborate and propose plans for a possible implementation of the developed and tested solutions by local authorities and transport authorities/operators.
• Through the active engagement of public transport operators, local authorities, rural communities, and civil society organisations, through the European Rural Mobility Network (ERMN)^[6], elaborate a roadmap to implement and scaling up the tested solutions, while ensuring widespread adoption across diverse regional contexts.

Proposals must plan for an active collaboration amongst the projects selected under this topic - for dissemination, evaluation and coordination - facilitated by and within the CIVITAS initiative^[7] through the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding. Proposals should ensure that appropriate provisions for activities and resources aimed at enforcing this collaboration are included in the work-plan.

If the proposed solutions use position, navigation, and/or timing (PNT) services or data, the beneficiaries must make use of Galileo (other GNSS may additionally be used). Where appropriate, Galileo services such as OSNMA (Open Service Navigation Message Authentication) and HAS (High Accuracy Service) should also be utilised.

This topic is a Societal-Readiness pilot:

• Proposals should follow the instructions applying to the Societal Readiness pilot, as described in the introduction of the Horizon Europe Main Work Programme 2026-2027 for Climate, Energy and Mobility. They entail the use of an interdisciplinary approach to deepening consideration and responsiveness of research and innovation activities to societal needs and concerns.
• This topic requires effective contribution of the relevant SSH expertise, including the involvement of SSH experts in the consortium, to meaningfully support Societal Readiness. Specifically, SSH expertise is expected to facilitate the socio-technological interface and enable designing inclusive transport systems that consider accessibility, equity, and digital literacy. Proposals should consider citizens engagement and dialogue, for seeking wider input and support.

[1] https://www.smarta-net.eu/

[2] https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/ae58bebf-b2b9-11ef-acb1-01aa75ed71a1

[3] https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/0b300f5f-b125-11ef-acb1-01aa75ed71a1/language-en

[4] Various shared mobility solutions have been demonstrated in multiple European projects, including , SMARTA2, LAST MILE, MAMBA, INCLUSION, MARA, MELINDA, Hi-Reach, UPPER and SPINE.

[5] Solutions – SMARTA-NET

[6] ERMN – SMARTA-NET

[7] CIVITAS