Late March 2023, the IP4MaaS project will kick off its demo in Athens, the first in a series of six demonstrations that will see forms of multimodal travel for different types of travellers across Europe. Real passengers will be using the Shift2Rail TravelCompanion application and provide valuable feedback that will help facilitate the development of more passenger-centric and seamless multimodal travel.
The IP4MaaS project aims to advance the uptake of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) schemes by analysing and testing technologies developed under the Innovation Programme 4 (IP4) of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking. By doing this, IP4MaaS contributes to the digital ecosystem for door-to door travel in a seamless, multimodal and European-wide transport system based on the railways.
The first demo, which will take place in Athens and is led by CERTH, will focus on enhancing multimodality by proving journey planning and integrated ticketing through a single application.
Although there are multiple transport modes operating in the area for serving every day commuting travellers, there is limited connectivity at the level of the networks and the services. In order to stimulate collaborative business models among public transport and bike sharing, taxis, e-scooters service providers and operators, the demo aims to create a neutral data analytics platform that will define best matching for intermodal services, this way guiding the actors of the relevant ecosystems to determine customised integrated mobility solutions.
On 15 March 2023, a short workshop with passengers was held to explain the objectives of the demo, as well as the main features of the Travel Companion app. The real demo will be held from 27 March until 31 March.
After Athens, the timeline and objective of the other demos is as follows;
- Padua (17/04 – 21/04): integrate mobility options into citizens-centric packages and testing the combination of ride-sharing and public transport, in collaboration with RIDE2RAIL project.
- Liberec (15/05-19/05): to test a set of services and IP4 functionalities, improving user acceptance of IP4 tools, and, on top of this, to test long distance connection to Warsaw
- Warsaw (15/5-19/05): to test a set of services and IP4 functionalities, improving user acceptance of IP4 tools. A long distance connection with Liberec through IP4 tools is also tested.
- Osijek (29/05-02/06): to test and demonstrate IP4 functionalities, providing a unified experience for PT users
- Barcelona (05/6-09/06): to optimize the use of multimodal travels reducing the number of vehicles, in particular for improving the mobility between Barcelona outskirts and city centre and vice versa.
The final demo in Barcelona will be held during the UITP Global Public Transport Summit, where participants will have the opportunity to try out the Travel Companion and know additional features of the IP4 ecosystem.
Do you want to know more about what is happening in each demo? Check out more info here!
