Aiming to discuss about shared mobility opportunities, the second meeting with the participation of stakeholders from the Region of North Aegean was held in February 2024 within the frame of SMAPE project – Interreg Europe. It was realized through a hybrid approach facilitating, this way, the active involvement of Authorities of many islands of the Region without traveling. Indeed, Mayors and Vice-Mayors from Mytilene, West Samos, Psara, Chios islands as well as their associates, and the President of the Technical Chamber of Greece-North Aegean Branch, were actively engaged.
The SMAPE local meeting achieved to bring together high-level representatives of a number of local Authorities. They described the shared mobility situation in their territory through a roundtable discussion organized. Then, all participants had the chance to comment and compare the differences and/or similarities of the islandic contexts in terms of population, public transport availability, terrain morphology, type of tourists attracted, etc., through a brainstorming session. The specific focus was to highlight the potential of shared mobility while identifying specific conditions in the islands of the North Aegean that could be beneficial for the implementation of shared modes.
The main concern discussed was about the revenue and hesitance of shared mobility operators and how to convince them to invest in the islands given that the mobility demand is highly variable. Also, influencing and changing the mobility behavior of citizens and tourists was mentioned as an important challenge and further support to the Authorities is needed towards that direction. In addition, even though everyone agreed that the target of sustainability has been explicitly set for their respective islands, concerns were raised about the link between sustainable mobility with the overall sustainable urban development approach. Thus, it was concluded that efforts are required to ensure that sustainable mobility, including shared mobility solutions, should be combined with the urban development, and not detached from the relevant policies. For this reason, feasibility and maturity studies are needed to strengthen the basis for efficient infrastructure and funding.
Finally, the stakeholders expressed their interest about the good practices which were presented by the SMAPE Greek partners as inspiration for the discussion and transferring the knowledge that derived from the project.
The stakeholders’ meeting was organized by the Greek Project Partners University of West Attica (PP7) and the Regional Development Fund of North Aegean Region (PP10).