As part of the European Mobility Week, two new projects funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area (EEA) 2014-2021 were presented at a press conference, taking place in the Knights Hall of Križanke on September 19th 2022. Both SmartMOVE: Smart solutions for sustainable mobility and ReMOBIL – Regional centres of mobility will introduce innovative and effective measures to limit negative environmental impacts resulting from unsustainable forms of mobility and the long-term development of sustainable mobility to the Ljubljana Urban Region and beyond.

Smart solutions for sustainable mobility

The project SmartMOVE: Smart solutions for sustainable mobility addresses the management of sustainable mobility in locations with a lot of traffic in Ljubljana and its surroundings. As Klemen Gostič, head of the SmartMOVE project at the leading partner Regional Development Agency of Ljubljana Urban Region pointed out, a number of measures will be implemented during the project – five mobility plans will be prepared for selected institutions, a new method of transport to work will be tested (dynamic shared transfer developed by the shuttle service GoOpti), a certificate for sustainable mobility will be established by Jožef Stefan Institute as a project partner and strategic recommendations will be introduced to the authorities of Slovenia, accompanied by propositions for upgrading the existing Integrated Transport Strategy of the Ljubljana Urban Region.

One of the key activities is the formation of mobility plans for institutions. Among them are University Medical Centre Ljubljana and the BTC area, Studio Moderna d.o.o., and the protected area of ​​the Ljubljana Marshes as an area of heritage. According to Klemen Milovanovič from the Ljubljana Urban Planning Institute (LUZ), the mobility plan is becoming part of the modern practice of regulating mobility in Ljubljana and Slovenia. It is a document that enables the active regulation of accessibility and optimization of parking by using measures that promote sustainable mobility and raise awareness of users, residents and employees in a positive way, summing up various locally available mobility modalities and stressing the effects of using sustainable transport options, including the dynamic group transport.

“GoOpti managed to offer a service so close to the experience of a personal vehicle, that when it comes to transfers to airports we managed to start changing habits. As many as 76% of our passengers would otherwise travel with their personal vehicle, but now leave it at home. With a personalized service that adapts to the actual needs of consumers, we have achieved the best approximation of the comfort of the personal vehicle. With high average vehicle occupancy, which is one of the key factors in reducing emissions, we ensure an extremely low carbon footprint per passenger kilometer. Through the project, we want to test this example of good practice for everyday use for reaching or leaving the workplace. For some time we have been thinking about how to adapt our algorithms that now apply to longer transfers a few times a year, all planned in advance to everyday transport, which requires a great deal of flexibility”, emphasized Marko Guček, CEO of GoOpti. With the help of European funds that feed the project, they will be able to participate in the establishment and testing of models of dynamic passenger transport services on routes, deprived of satisfactory public passenger traffic. They will get acquainted with the actual needs of the employees and find the most critical connections that do not have a good transport alternative, and offer daily transportation to and from work for a trial period. They are focusing mainly on connections between areas of Ljubljana, such as BTC or UKC, and the surroundings such as Domžale, Kamnik, Grosuplje etc.

The project is carried out in partnership with eight organizations. In addition to RRA LUR, which is the leading partner of the project, and the already mentioned LUZ, GoOpti and IJS also the Employers’ Association of Slovenia, IPoP – Institute for Spatial Policy, CER Partnership for a Sustainable Economy of Slovenia and the Norwegian research partner Nordland Institute.

As emphasized by Matej Gojčič, deputy director of RRA LUR, sustainable mobility has been one of the key priorities of the Agency from day one: “With the professional basis for regulating public passenger traffic in the Ljubljana Urban Region, we laid the foundations for the development of sustainable mobility in the region, we continued with the P+R study , on the basis of which many transfer points were created. In addition to the six in Ljubljana, there are also seven municipalities in the region. The Integrated Transport Strategy of the Ljubljana Urban Region from 2018, which is expected to be amended shortly, is also of key importance. The results of the ReMOBIL and SmartMOVE projects, which started in May this year and will end at the end of April 2024, will make a significant contribution to the realization of the goals set.”

The press conference was followed by a lively event by the name of PartyMOBIL, organized by RRA LUR for promoting current projects in the field of sustainable mobility. In addition to the new SmartMOVE and ReMOBIL projects, Sustourismo project, aiming to reduce the carbon footprint in tourism by bringing various options for sustainable travel to tourists was also presented, as well as LinkingAlps, which provides residents of Alpine countries, tourists, and especially daily migrants with a new mobile solution with up-to-date information for door-to-door cross-border travel with sustainable transport modalities.