The main challenges for the transport sector in the EU are aiming to provide multi-modal door-to-door intermodal journeys, and at the same time, shifting towards low-emission mobility. Efficient transport services and infrastructure are then, vital to enabling economic and social cohesion and to target these new challenges. Cities, especially in terms of urban transport, have a crucial role to play in addressing these challenges. In this way, huge strides have to be done in improving customer needs to support seamless door-to-door intermodal journeys encompassing different modes of transport.
To achieve a full seamless multimodal travel experience, the customers should be able to easily plan, book and purchase door-to-door journeys without dealing with different tools, procedures and interfaces. Hence, to become more attractive, rail must achieve interoperability with other transport modes and mobility services, within different regions, cities and across borders and face the lack of modal interoperability.
Understanding and differentiating the performance and potential of emerging new and innovative transport and mobility systems will be fundamental to implement successful and sustainable transport solutions. This is one of the main objectives of Shift2Rail. Where the traveller journey should become the norm, digitalisation is reshaping the sector. Web, mobile and big data applications are changing new mobility and transport services and systems. Based on these new solutions and taking advantage of new technologies, the traveller expects a more attractive offer, without interruptions, that allows him to access the entire service.
In fact, encouraging the acceptance of new transport solution requires the development of measures that make the journey more pleasurable. The implementation of solutions increases the provision and the communication of information, enhances the convenience, improves the travel experience and facilitates journey planning. In this context and in addition to the MaaS (Mobility as a Service) solutions nowadays proposed to the travellers, the stage that allows data sharing should also be considered and progressively developed using appropriate standards and specifications to enable travellers with more and more services that they need and expect. Within this context, solutions based on SaaS (Software as a Service) for the development of truly multimodal infrastructure provide simple and seamless interchanges that include different transport modes (urban and regional rail, public transport including demand transport, air transport, road transport, cycling and walking, “shared services” - car sharing, bike sharing etc.).
The use of this emerging technology is accelerating the maturation of transportation. Instead of working separately on a solution, different providers can now take part as a community in order to find real, workable solutions. The use the software as a service solution will assure compatibility and ease the collaboration.
Within the IP4 (IT solutions for attractive Railway services), the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking is aiming to improve the current transport solutions aligned with the challenge of the European Commission´s White Paper for Transport 2011: “By 2020, establish the framework for a European multimodal transport information, management and payment system”.
ExtenSive provides complementary and continuous solutions already started within previous projects, MaaSive, ATTRACkTIVE, Co-Active and the lighthouse project IT2Rail, to enhance the traveller experience and improve the travel services (in the areas of travel shopping, trip tracking, booking and ticketing and aligned with Mobility as a Service paradigms) and deal with Software as a Service approach. ExtenSive will improve and enhance the current functionalities of IP4 and create synergies with the other S2R IPs to enhance services for users and operators and facilitate information flow among IP4 services and other railway systems.