Learn about Smart Public Transport Initiatives with the SPINE project
Interviews with Sissi Koronaiou, Project Manager, & Makis Kouloumbis, Project Coordinator, Inlecom Innovation, and Marijke De Roeck, Director of Communication & Participation, City of Antwerp, from the SPINE project on increasing public transport use and the quality of life in our cities.
Watch the video interviews directly.
What are the aims and vision of the SPINE project?
Sissi Koronaiou:The main goals of SPINE are the increase in public transport use and the increase in user satisfaction. SPINE’s vision is to accelerate the growth towards climate neutrality by reinforcing public transport with new mobility services and improving the quality of life and social justice.
What public transport challenges does SPINE address?
Makis Kouloumbis: There is limited transport service integration in automation, which makes it necessary to bring together public transport and micro mobility. To overcome this kind of challenge, we are considering the construction of multi-modal hubs, the creation of multi-ticketing, integrating into our planning parking areas where we allow park and ride. The next challenge that the cities have recognised is the need to improve the public transport quality in the areas of punctuality, predictability and comfort. The cities are looking into having a more systematic traffic management, and creating what we call public transport prioritisation, in order to go faster through the city.
How is SPINE helping cities?
Marijke De Roeck:SPINE is a project that can help cities like Antwerp in thinking about ways to help travellers change their behaviour by showing what the availability of transport in a particular area is, through means of signage and other kinds of digital screens. It can also help travellers in getting an idea of what is available, also with regard to the way that they have to cover their last or first mile. So you can also see a shared bike system as public transport. How everything interconnects is something we have to tell people. This can be by means of digital applications but it can also be through signage in the public domain.
Learn more about the SPINE project.
