Rural Mobility, Deprivation and Innovation: The Need for a Rural Scope - Lecture slides and presentation video
Dr. Koen Salemink from the University of Groningen was invited to RGU to give a talk on Rural Mobility, Deprivation and Innovation. The talk was held on November 1st in the Aberdeen Business School Building.
Slides of the presentation are available here.
A lecture capture of the presentation is available here, or below:
Dr Salemink discussed how regions throughout Northwestern Europe are struggling to sustain mobility in rural areas. He argued that little changed in the four decades since Malcolm Moseley published his classic work on rural accessibility in 1979. However, advances in ICT means that new mobility innovation offers the potential for exciting new transport and accessibility solutions but creates new institutional and operational challenges for policy makers and transport providers.
In his talk, Koen discussed transnational issues around rural mobility in the North Sea Region, and examined the potential for digitisation to underpin a rural scope and a rural-based approach to access and mobility.
He argued that new transport technology is typically developed with metropolitan areas in mind it is vital that identify innovation that help address some of the unique challenges involved in providing access and mobility in rural and island areas.
Dr Salemink argued that if digital innovation is to be a core driver behind contemporary rural mobility policies and practices, then social and economic needs of rural communities should be the starting point for innovation, rather than trying to adapt primarily urban technology and practices for use in rural localities with rural bandwidth.
Koen was invited to talk as part of the G-PaTRA (Green Passenger Transport in Rural Areas) project, for which RGU is lead beneficiary. G-PaTRA is funded by the Interreg North Sea Region programme.