CONNECT2CE Improved rail connections and smart mobility in Central Europe

Project title: Improved rail connections and smart mobility in Central Europe

Programme: Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE

Priority: Cooperating on transport to better connect CENTRAL EUROPE

Specific objective: To improve planning and coordination of regional passenger transport system for better connections to national and European transport networks

Description: CONNECT2CE aims at tackling the weak accessibility of regional, peripheral and cross-border areas of Central Europe to/from the main regional/national/EU transport networks and hubs, caused by the long lasting phenomenon of urbanisation, as a consequence of which rural population has been steadily decreasing, leading to lower density and sparsely populated rural and peripheral areas, where efficient public transport (PT) is challenging. CONNECT2CE will enhance the qualitative and quantitative understanding and the awareness of present and future regional public transport systems in CE and endow project partners, authorities and regional PT operators with tools and skills to shape their PT policies. Ultimately, this will improve the capacities of the public sector in CE to efficiently plan peripheral and cross-border public transport systems.

CONNECT2CE will do so by elaborating harmonised and coordinated transnational strategies, action plans and tools to be mainstreamed and implemented at regional and cross border level through pilot actions, in three areas all connected and intertwined to each other and all being essential elements that contribute to the enhancement of PT services of peripheral/cross-border regions:

Connectivity (PSOs/PSCs, harmonisation of multimodal timetables, regional and cross-border rail services);
Integrated ticketing and tariff schemes (integration of regional and cross border multimodal tickets will be tested and implemented for the first time);
Implementation of the most efficient and innovative ICT tools on info-mobility.
These outputs will be developed at transnational level, as common solutions to common problems. They need to be jointly elaborated. This approach will be applied throughout the duration of the project, by the active participation of all PPs in all WPs applying the elaborated transnational strategies and action plans at regional and cross-border level, combining transport and territorial development.

The project CONNECT2CE implemented within the Interreg Central Europe Program aims to improve the poor transport connections between regional and peripheral and border areas towards the TENT-T network and urban transport nodes, existing due to long-standing urbanization that leads to a continuous decrease of rural population. As a result, rural and peripheral areas are sparsely populated, which poses a challenge in respect of the efficiency of the public transport in these regions.

Project content: examining the possibilities of linking peripheral areas by means of public transport, examining and enhancing feeder transport connections, harmonizing the public transport systems of the countries participating in the project.

Within the project, GYSEV will be involved in all WPs, with a specific focus on the following:

GYSEV will map the public transport connections and their current status along the tri-state-border of AT-HU-SI in order to improve the transport of the peripheral areas near the tri-state-border.
Moreover, GYSEV will also map the public transport connections and their current status in and around Kőszeg functioning as a central transport node along the state-border of AT-HU in order to improve the transport of the peripheral areas near the state-border.
Besides, GYSEV will implement one pilot action, foreseeing a multimodal and multi-lingual passenger information system on the cross-border railway line towards Austria, which will be based on a transnational tool developed within the project and will contribute to the transnational strategy elaborated within the project.