The three pilot projects in detail

The central element of the new mobility offers in Lower Austria is a ride sharing platform that combines the digital and mobile services of a mobile application (app) with the infrastructure at the Park & Ride facilities.
Carpooling is counted as part of public transport, or rather an MaaS solution, and is integrated into both the information system and the tariff. Season tickets are valid not only on public transport but also for car pools.

The mobility guarantee, the pilot project’s core element, enables carpooling to be booked immediately without having to wait for confirmation. If no car pool is formed, mobility is guaranteed by a (call and shared) taxi.

With Park & Ride facilities, carpooling is preferred due to the current overload. A mobile application is used to reserve a parking space in the facility for car pool providers. In addition, the driver automatically receives a credit for trips that have been made.

In close cooperation with companies in Linz (industrial area in the east of Linz), a laboratory environment is being created for an integrated mobility offer. On the one hand, the goal is to offer standardised and integrated access to adequate mobility options for the daily commute, but on the other hand to also provide options for leisure time travel ("app instead of own car").

Participating companies in the pilot project have the opportunity to offer their employees an option to change their mobility more easily and sustainably through better information and new forms of mobility. The plan is to make the resulting offer available to all employees in the industrial area in order to expand their commuting opportunities and make them as flexible as possible.

In summary, the pilot project's objectives can be formulated as follows: The laboratory environment serves as the basis for optimising daily commuter traffic. This optimisation is achieved by increasing the occupancy rate of vehicles (through a ridesharing platform), promoting the switch to public transport, reducing traffic jams (CO₂ emissions) in the greater Linz area and making employers in the greater Linz area more attractive through the mobility offer.

In the Salzburg pilot region, the prototype implementation of cross-mode and cross-operator traffic management is being tested.
One of the leading navigation applications in the car sector from the navigation provider Sygic is being used as an interface for road users. It is being adapted in the research project in such a way that it can receive and interpret cross-operator traffic management strategies via standard interfaces (e.g. DATEX II), so that the routing proposals can be dynamically adapted to the strategies.

In addition, users who mainly travel by public transport have the option of using a special pilot app that shows traffic management-optimised intermodal routes or MaaS offers and in many cases enables them to be booked directly.

As part of an evaluation during the pilot phase, the effects that are derived from the use of the apps is anonymously collected, i.e. whether and in what form the users follow the suggested routes.