Vectos

Project overview

SMARTA is an EU research and demonstration project developing new insights into the challenges faced by rural communities across the world in maintaining good transport and accessibility. The project consortium offers expertise to selected rural sites, to pilot and evaluate innovative solutions to overcome these challenges.

Our approach

Our work involves researching the policies of different countries, making recommendations for how they can be improved, particularly building the business case for cross-sector collaboration to open the door to more cost effective, flexible and on-demand services. We help coordinate the delivery and evaluation of pilots by reviewing the social, economic and environmental benefits, as well as those associated with improved accessibility.

So far, we have liaised with the Rural Services Network, Rural England, English local authorities and international partners to collate good practice examples of improving last mile connectivity with rural communities, providing insight to stakeholders across Europe.

We are now identifying potential pilot sites to trial and evaluate new and extended mobility services, which use new technologies and sharing to make better use of existing transport capacity.