Skive Municipality wants to turn commuter transportation in a greener direction.
Skive Municipality is a commuting municipality. Nearly 22.000 commuting trips are completed each and every working day of the week - back and forth between the respective workplaces and homes of the commuters. In 92 % of the cars - that make this commuting spectacle possible - there is only 1 person. That is the equivalent of about 20.000 trips in Skive with only one person in each car. This translates to a huge underutilized capacity. Simultaneously, all these cars emit greenhouse gases to the environment, take up parking spaces, cause congestions and cost a lot for the individual commuter. Sitting alone in your car has though, the major benefit of flexibility and freedom for the driver.
Skive Municipality has, as a part of our work with sustainable development, entered an international project called Stronger Combined. Stronger Combined provide us with the possibility to test and demonstrate how new mobility services such as ridesharing, carpooling, public city bikes and other new alternatives can be connected to the traditional public transport services, such as busses and trains. Connecting these two worlds into one will contribute to a more efficient public transport system. Thus, also providing a more sustainable alternative to the traditional way of commuting as described above.
In Skive Municipality we want to do pilots around a ridesharing solution for commuters in select rural areas of Skive. Our vision is to connect this solution to the public transport system as well as taking a look at first and last mile solutions able to connect to the busses in Skive municipality. In the end these different forms of transport will be linked together into one service. This system is called Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Hence, all the different mobility solutions are found within one app and can be booked and payed for via this app.
By connecting the different forms of transport, we have an offer that is almost as flexible as taking your own car by yourself. The difference though is that by utilizing these different alternatives, we benefit from all the positive effects it also brings. This ends up offering better public mobility in Skive municipality, a better local environment, a positive effect on both societal and individual economy and opens up new possibilities from areas not utilized very efficiently today – specifically huge parking spaces.