Project Summary

The SMARTMOBAIR project addresses the common challenge of traffic congestion and air pollution in the Adriatic-Ionian region, hindering the achievement of climate neutrality goals. Through a transnational approach, the project aims to enhance sustainable and smart urban mobility by strengthening territorial collaboration to support the deployment of intelligent transport system solutions in 6 pilot territories and foster their uptake in other Adriatic Ionian cities and territories. The main barriers to a large-scale deployment of intelligent transport technologies and systems and the launch of new smart mobility services lie on a lack of knowledge and understanding of the new technologies and the implications of their introduction both on the mobility system and on the mobility management systems. Another issue is that these technologies have been usually studied and tested in contexts quite different from the Adriatic Ionian Region (AIR) and their introduction in this area requires a process of adaptation and testing. The overall objective is to overcome these barriers and establish a joint approach for identification, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of ICT solutions able to respond to specific territorial mobility needs. This will lead to the development and implementation of coordinated actions tailored to specific territorial peculiarities, resulting in enhanced urban mobility. The project aims to jointly test and validate the effectiveness of 6 intelligent transport system solutions in addressing mobility challenges, introducing clean and smart mobility services, and improving traffic flow management in functional urban areas. The main outputs of the project include enhanced collaboration and coordination among 16 organizations (SMARTMOBAIR cooperation network) and validated intelligent transport system solutions (SMARTMOBAIR smart mobility pilot actions). These outputs will benefit the partner territories, contributing to improved infrastructure use, deployment of new mobility services, and smart management of traffic flows, at the same time improving existing mobility-related plans and strategies. Expertise in new technologies deployment will be acquired, fostering policy learning and transferability of project results. The main beneficiaries of these results will be primarily cities and mobility service providers, but other beneficiaries will be also provincial and regional authorities, companies operating in the ICT and mobility sectors and the benefits will impact the population at large. SMARTMOBAIR capitalizes and builds up on the results of several previous projects related to urban mobility and intelligent transport systems as well as on sound methodologies already successfully implemented to disseminate and achieve project results capitalization. The project adopts a transnational approach to fully leverage the opportunities offered by innovative intelligent transport system solutions. This approach allows for sharing experiences, knowledge, and best practices among partners, optimizing the impact on both the involved cities and the wider Adriatic-Ionian region. The project recognizes that traffic congestion and air pollution are interconnected challenges that transcend administrative boundaries, requiring a collaborative and coordinated effort. What sets the SMARTMOBAIR project apart is its focus on the implementation and validation of smart mobility and ITS solutions in pilot territories through the design of a monitoring and evaluation framework for better exploitation of ICT technologies and evidence-based data, promoting the adoption of a data-driven mobility decision-making process. Last but not least, by introducing new smart mobility services and enhancing traffic flow management, the project aims to make a significant change in the current situation. It contributes to the implementation of the European Green Deal and the EUSAIR Strategy, promoting sustainable urban mobility and facilitating the transition towards zero carbon emissions.