Smart mobility and public transport: Opportunities and challenges in rural and urban areas

Abstract Demographic changes in peripheral areas are pressuring the regional public transport systems to adopt innovative strategies. The employment of internet of things (IoT) technologies has proven to be a valid response to mobility challenges in rural areas, and has brought up the concept of “smart land”. Framed within the context of the Interreg Central Europe project RUMOBIL, this study tries to shed light on how the deployment of smart mobility solutions within the rural context compare to that within the urban context. Following a literature review, we compared the ease of implementation of different IoT solutions on the urban and the rural contexts, for planners, travellers, and operators, and the relative complexity of common smart mobility issues. In addition, we identified three major challenges for both rural and urban mobility, namely the need for standardized metrics for optimal routes' detection and a dynamic definition of optimal route, as well as the simplification of investments' planning and programming. Both smart cities and smart land can benefit from smart mobility solutions, even if in most cases, each of the two contexts can gain more advantages than the other from the same solution. Even considering the different levels of population scattering, technological infrastructures, social maturity, and economic opportunities, both rural and urban areas offer comparable advantages. For the future of transport, it is up to all policy levels to consider the challenges deriving from expected trends and leverage the untapped potential of IoT technologies to satisfy future travellers’ needs and ensure sustainability.