RIDE2RAIL - Travel Companion enhancements and RIDE-sharing services syncronised to RAIL and Public Transport

Project objective

RIDE2RAIL’s overall objective is to develop an innovative framework for intelligent mobility, facilitating the efficient combination of flexible (ride-sharing) and scheduled transport services (rail, bus, and other public transport services), thus enhancing the performance of the overall mobility system.

RIDE2RAIL aims to integrate multiple (public/private/social) data sets and existing transport platforms for promoting an effective ride sharing practice of citizens, making it a complementary transport mode that extends public transport networks.

The objectives of the RIDE2RAIL project are:

  • to develop an innovative framework for intelligent mobility, facilitating efficient combination of flexible and scheduled transport services, integrating real-time information about public transport and ride sharing
  • to create a tool that facilitates the comparison and the choice between multiple options/services classified by a set of criteria, for example environmental, travel time, comfort, cost
  • to encourage carpooling (and ride sharing acceptance) as complementary for public transport
  • to enhance the performance of the overall mobility system, reducing road congestion and environmental impact, reinforcing the mobility offer in rural and low-demand areas
  • to combine travel offer classifications and software components, integrating them into existing collective and on-demand transport services
  • to induct the access to high-capacity services thanks to easy-to-use multimodal and integrated travel planning, booking, ticketing and payment features
  • to design, develop and test in four real demonstrators a set of software components for the IP4 ecosystem, including an advanced Travel Companion and the crowd-based Transport Service Provider
  • to produce recommendations for replicability

Project outcome

RIDE2RAIL will design, develop and test in real demonstrators a set of software components for the IP4 ecosystem, including advanced Travel Companion features and a crowd-based Transport Service Provider, which will foster the combination of flexible and regular multimodal mobility through an easy personalisation in diverse existing environments, thus facilitating the market uptake. RIDE2RAIL will deliver a set of validated proof of concepts and business cases envisaging future mobility scenarios, where advanced transport solutions will be seamlessly integrated into existing collective transport services (rail and others) in four (4) diverse cities in Europe: Padua, Athens, Brno and Helsinki.

Metropolia's role

Metropolia will support the pilot in Helsinki which is led by Forum Virium Helsinki. The Helsinki pilot focuses on improving access to rail, in particular metro, for the first and last mile, aiming to cater to the mobility needs of people in Helsinki’s most Eastern neighborhood Vuosaari. The pilot will contain two parts, which both focus on reducing single-occupant private car trips.

  1. Testing the use of an automated shuttle bus in more rural areas, as part of a multi-modal last-mile journey, integrated in relevant travel planning applications.
  2. Testing the RIDE2RAIL ridesharing platform, as much as possible integrated with existing mobility platforms (e.g. public transport route planner)

More information

Visit project website

Eetu Rutanen, Project manager

Eetu.Rutanen [at] metropolia.fi (Eetu[dot]Rutanen[at]metropolia[dot]fi)