EMOJI – Independent mobility of young people in rural regions

Young people in rural areas often grow up “car-oriented”. Young people associate private cars with freedom and independence and see them as a necessity in order to be mobile. Offers for active mobility, sharing or demand-responsive transport are sometimes little known, unpopular or simply do not exist. In the EMOJI project, the consortium consisting of Factum, BOKU, the transport planning office komobile and the Environmental Education Center Styria is working on measures and solutions that enable regional mobility that is suitable for children and young people. The starting point is mobility solutions that have already been designed or tested, as there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Children and young people from the two pilot regions in Styria and Upper Austria evaluate these solutions. The next step is to evaluate the solutions from the perspective of transport planning and municipal representatives and stakeholders. Together with the children and young people, solutions for child- and youth-friendly mobility in the pilot municipalities will then be defined and the participation of children and young people in shaping mobility services will be institutionalized. The project output is a framework concept for municipalities that provides practical guidance on how to ensure sustainable mobility provision in rural regions that meets the needs of children and young people – and in the best case has been developed together with them.

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