Social innovations as a catalyst for sustainable and smart mobility services in remote regions (SIS2MO)

With SIS2MO project, we aim to introduce a rural mobility lab (RuMoLab) model that supports local authorities in co-creating sustainable and smart mobility services in cooperation with local and regional social initiatives. RuMoLab is aimed to be a replicable user-centric working framework that connects public authorities (service providers) with local residents (service users) through social innovation based solutions. The effectiveness and the economy of rural mobility services, that are both sustainable and smart, heavily relies on their alignment with the needs and behaviour of local residents. In RuMoLabs public authorities will cooperate, co-create and experiment with social initiatives that usually act as “connectors” to local residents. Having social initiatives as one of the key co-creators in RuMoLabs will allow to develop better tailored mobility services to the vulnerable groups (e.g., seniors; people with limited mobility; people with low income, youth). In addition, co-creation in RuMoLabs will be supported with sustainable and smart mobility experts who will support public authorities in evaluating the feasibility of developed mobility services. The project adopts a multi-level governance approach that strategically bridges national policy frameworks with local needs and capacities. By engaging both national ministries and municipalities, the initiative leverages top-down policy alignment while fostering local innovation and context-sensitive solutions.