First and Last Mile mobility concepts: Potentials for climate-friendly mobility, better accessibility and connectivity of rural-urban areas

Population growth, international obligations and legal requirements push public infrastructure and social services to constant innovation and changes. Transport is one of the key concerns of the climate change and one of the key challenges in the management of cities as well as rural areas. Urban areas, their surroundings and rural areas are often affected by intensified traffic and increasing commuting flows based on the motorized individual transport. Alternative concepts and approaches of demand- responsive and multimodal mobility are urgently needed to reach a sustainable regional development. This paper addresses several possible challenges for the transport services arising from technical and infrastructure angles like location, availability, accessibility of infrastructure as well as service issues for different social groups like pricing, booking, schedules and other. The metropolitan areas of Graz and Ljubljana have collected some good (GUSTmobil, REGIOtim, EURBAN, Bicikelj) and unsuccessful practices. Those projects will form a basis for studying the impact of “First and Last Mile” services in terms of accessibility of the transport services. Furthermore, the weaknesses of transport systems will be elaborated. The paper will offer some solutions on how to structure new services to assure improved use of sustainable mobility within and between urban and rural areas. The rural urban connectivity as a base for the sustainable growth of the larger urban-rural context will be analyzed. Using the practice examples, innovative solutions, future public policies orientations with particular view of rural-urban connect will be reflected.