This project aims to develop a transport policy toolkit for stakeholders to support transport policy decision-making and enhance connectivity between urban and rural areas across Europe.
Transport accessibility and mobility are central to connecting people to essential services, business and employment opportunities. Provision and accessibility to transport services in peripheral rural areas is significantly worse than in urban. Improving urban-rural connectivity would help promote entrepreneurial investments in local and regional economies as well as increase quality of life for those with inadequate or restricted access to essential services and employment opportunities. The project encompasses 4 European territories with comparable urban-rural transport connectivity challenges in non-metropolitan areas in close proximity to rural spaces namely Scarborough Borough, UK (Lead stakeholder), Marina Alta (Spain), Regione Liguria (Italy) and Västerbotten County (Sweden).
The research exercise will involve desk-based research to identify emergent transport policy initiatives and theory that can be implemented by policymakers to improve transport network efficiency in their territories. Case studies from the partner territories will also be undertaken by researchers to identify challenges unique to participants and how these challenges have been met. Opportunities for discussion and collaboration will also be facilitated at 4 network events, encouraging knowledge transfer and consideration of new approaches to transport policy improvement. The end product will be a toolkit containing recommendations based on emergent theory as well as real world experiences that will allow transport policy best practise to be identified, giving stakeholders access to a suite of potential transport policy solutions that can be tailored to their specific needs.
Nordregio contribution to the project:
- Lead partner for WP 2.2. – Analysis of existing and emerging patterns of urban-rural linkages
- Conducting an extensive case study focusing on flexible urban-rural transport solutions/systems in the Västerbotten county as well as contextualizing the challenges encountered and outlining the recommended solutions provided
- Mapping and analysis to help tailor recommended policy solutions
