Portugal-Braga: Encouraging alternative transportation for school commuting.
Background
The city of Braga and EIT Urban Mobility are looking to fund a six-month pilot of a solution to encourage alternative school transportation. Parents driving their children to school contribute to traffic congestion during peak hours, resulting in environmental issues and traffic jams on streets near schools that pose risks to pedestrians and cyclists. Given the city's unique configuration, where most of the population resides within a 15-20-minute distance from the city centre, it is necessary and feasible to encourage the use of sustainable alternative modes of transportation to go to and from school, as advantageous for both parents and children.
Currently, the city is seeking innovative technological solutions to improve, optimize and enhance the use of sustainable modes of transportation to go to school, reduce reliance on private cars and alleviate traffic congestion in the city centre.
To this end, potential solutions may focus on, but are not limited to:
- Optimizing bus schedules and routes based on user needs,
- Providing effective communication tools for parents/guardians and schools/municipalities (such
- as feedback mechanisms and parental check-in notifications),
- Implementing real-time tracking and monitoring,
- Developing on-demand transport management systems,
- Offering carpooling solutions for parents.
Solutions that use gamification or incentives to encourage the use of sustainable modes of transport and increase awareness of sustainable mobility practices among children might also be considered.
Published on 07 March, 2022.