Thursday, June 7, 2012

Mobility Centers in Europe

A Mobility Centre is a centre that provides tailor-made information and services on mobility, not only for public transport modes but also for other modes, like car parking, carsharing, bike sharing. It operates at an urban or regional level, where mobility services are provided. Ideally, a MC has a 'physical' office, to visit or to contact by phone and email, and a 'virtual' one, a website offering multimodal information, route planners etc. (e.g. Helsinki Region Transport in Finland, Mobil Zentral in Graz, Austria and Centrale di Mobilit� in Milan, Italy). Although ICT is gaining in importance, the presence of physical offices remains important (for instance SUMOBIS). Qualified personnel, trained as a mobility consultant, is one of the minimum standards for a Mobility Center. . In the past 10 years, many Mobility Centers have been established through the support from European projects:  In March 2012 three Mobility Info Shops opened in Ljubljana. These Mobility Info Shops provide information on public transport in the city and the Slovenian railways. It is planned that at least one of these will grow into a real Mobility Centre by the end of the year. SEE MMS partner cities will have implemented 10 new MCs by the end of June 2012. five 'Transport Offices' have been created: in Toulouse, in Burgos, in Oviedo, in Ponferrada and a virtual office in Huelva. Read more in EPOMM.

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