Mobile together

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Many rural areas lack public transportation or it is sparse, which means that its inhabitants have to rely on cars and the commuters tend to drive alone. This leads to higher living costs due to car dependency, unnecessary environmental stress with poorly exploited cars and difficulties to be mobile for youngsters and people without cars. Ride-sharing is one way to enhance sustainable development conditions in rural and small town areas but can also have community-building effects by joining inhabitants. The project "Mobile together" intends to establish related ride-sharing communities. To avoid that "wheels are invented twice", it will start with a field trip to a successful ride-sharing initiative that also has increased the social activities in the village, at the same time as money and environment is saved, a true example of rural sustainable development. Based on this and additional best practice investigations, every partner region will, subsequent to this, develop and test ride sharing concepts for the own region in close cooperation with each other. The ride-sharing communities to be established as combination of community self-understanding and availability of suitable tools are intended to be a guiding example for a larger region and thus, other communities. Being adapted to specific local needs, the means of promoting ride-sharing may vary, but could include applications for cell phones, computer programs or more traditional means of communication (bulletin boards etc.). After an evaluation period of at least six months the results are analysed and discussed among the partners. The participating regions will jointly analyse the experiences from the local projects, the achieved results and specify which method or methods work best and under what circumstances. The social interactions and involvement in the community is expected to increase as an effect of the project, thereby strengthening the solidarity but also the feeling of following an internationally relevant standard. The outcome of the analysis, in terms of economic, environmental and social implications, will be jointly turned into a strategy for implementing ride-sharing initiatives on a larger scale, a region-wide promotion of the ride-sharing idea and related concepts and a best practice guide with advice for implementation.

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