In Sweden, public transportation including complementary transportation in rural areas, transport of school children, STS (Special Transport Services for elderly and disabled) facilities and public health care transportation are publicly subventionized to a great extent but organised in different ways. More intensive use of vehicles used now simply for the transportation of children or STS or health care transport purposes could contribute considerably to creating transportation possibilities not currently offered. This requires use of integrated planning systems, integrated information and booking facilities and computer support so as to exploit the transport facilities involved in meeting needs of the public at large as well. In the municipality of Varberg, integration of STS and regular bus lines was tested using cooperating computerised systems and providing extensive personal information for the STS customers. More than 10% of the STS trips taken were transferred in this way to regular bus lines. This also increased the mobility by some 5% for the STS customers involved. No serious problems integrating these modes were noted, although somewhat more help with bags than was provided was desired on the part of STS customers. Generally, the approach of integrated use of computerised systems was found to be very successful and should be further developed to include all public subsidised transports. In the municipality of Olofstroem, all publicly subsidised transportation was investigated determining their energy consumption, possibilities for reducing emissions and explore more sustainable transport solutions. The degree of emissions per trip for a person was found to be more closely related to the cabin factor (share of seats used) than to the size of the vehicles. It was shown that there were several free seats in school transport vehicles that could be offered regularly for public use generally. The goals of the integrated transportation in Varberg were developed further. It was found that an intermediate booking form involving trips to which users could subscribe would facilitate the integration envisioned and offer more attractive transportation opportunities with fixed departure times and no need for pre-ordering each time. Through use of the internet and other modern technology, the strategy just described can easily be extended to medical and small goods delivery, private car-sharing services and car-pooling as well. The increased mobility gained reduces people's dependency upon cars, facilitates more sustainable transportation and reduces social exclusion. For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.
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