Changes in the social and economic structures in sparsely populated rural areas combined with growing overdevelopment on the one hand and a high density of jobs and supply infrastructure in the cities on the other hand cause the following problems in the rural areas of Austria: longer commuting distances, population drain from peripheral areas, increasing dependency on private motorised traffic, cutbacks in the public transport (PT) system, and a declining regional supply infrastructure. Besides growing mobility costs this means growing importance of private motorised traffic for the younger generation as well as supply and mobility problems for those residents without access to a private car. The goal of the research project MOVE was to survey the available mobility supply and the mobility behaviour in five Austrian regions, to analyse the emerging supply deficiencies and social discrimination of parts of the rural population and to test measures to alleviate those problems. A standardised postal household survey (sample size 2033 persons) of mobility patterns in the rural area was carried out to identify those residents with mobility problems. In an extended stated preference survey the supply and mobility problems of the target groups were listed, and hypothetical solutions were tested for their acceptance rate and efficiency. Focus groups were employed in a pilot study. There is a problematic decrease of basic supply with vital goods and social life as village shops close and those with cars drive to the supermarkets. There are obvious deficiencies in the public transport service, especially at off-peak times. Within some communities or villages there is simply no public transport infrastructure at all. Social discrimination can be alleviated by offering new forms of mobility and supply structures. Changes in the legal framework are necessary to allow implementation of these new services and as a consequence to guarantee vital supply and mobility in the future. The acceptance and elasticity of the solutions presented in the research project and the respective motives for approval and disapproval have been analysed. It became clear that many social disadvantages can be avoided by implementing certain frameworks. A good example is the approval rate of the "Tele-Office". Teleworking employees of several companies meet in a tele-office in their community, where a computer-network links them to their respective companies. Among those who do not have a job because commuting would be too time-consuming (mainly women) the approval rate of the tele-office is about 60%. Based on the results of this research paper, the demand-responsive transport service "Country Mobile" is scheduled for practical trial in one of the regions surveyed by MOVE. For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.
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