BusUp is an innovative concept in smart mobility that allows travelers to book on-demand crowd-sourced buses for leisure and commuting. Users are able to setup their own routes in the web-platform and app. They can share them with their friends and colleagues, or can make them public on the platform or social media for anybody join. BusUp is also available for B2B clients that want to create their own routes through a dedicated web platform. BusUp was created to solve a need in medium-distance travel: commuting in suburban and exurban areas, or traveling to events like music festivals and sports events located in city peripheries or neighboring towns - essentially anywhere public transport is limited or non-existent, and where the car is the only option despite the fact that it’s more expensive, less sustainable, or simply no fun. While on-demand bus transportation solutions are already growing in the United States and India, they are only now starting to emerge in the EU, and are limited by their technology and business models. By employing proprietary artificial intelligent algorithms that determines optimal pick-up times, locations and vehicle routes, in combination with crowd-sourced payment modules, BusUp is able to offer one of the most innovative solutions in collective road transportation. By using BusUp users will be contributing to the reduction of congestion and pollution, while joining a community of like-minded travelers who want to enjoy the ride. Our current platform, BusUp 1.0, has been extensively tested with local bus operators and passengers in Barcelona for over 4 months and has already started to serve its first paying customers. BusUp has already reached a commercial agreement to internationalize and to operate in Sao Paulo (Brazil) in 2017.

The main objective of the INCLUSION project is to understand, assess and evaluate the accessibility and inclusiveness of transport solutions in European prioritised areas, identify gaps and unmet needs, propose and experiment with a range of innovative and transferable solutions, including ICT-enabled elements, ensuring accessible, inclusive and equitable conditions for all and especially vulnerable user categories. INCLUSION will address a large set of case studies (at least 50) involving different forms of geographical areas and transport contexts, demographic categories, population groups and mobility solutions, providing concrete experiences from various European sites and pilot initiatives involving a variety of regulatory and business frameworks, supporting technologies, organisational and operational conditions. Complementary to this, a number of innovative solutions will be concretely tried out and validated through real-life experiments (Innovation Pilot Labs) in a mix of urban, peri-/sub-urban and rural target areas in Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the UK, offering a variety of different transport environments, socio-economic contexts, cultural and geographical conditions. Expected results include: an understanding of the main challenges affecting transport provision and accessibility in the different type of prioritised areas; a structured view highlighting the dependencies among spatial and environmental characteristics, populations segments and their mobility needs; in-depth examination of 10 innovative PT approaches and a wider catalogue of at least 40 promising cases contributing to more accessible, inclusive and equitable transport solutions, complemented by innovative solution components validated in real-life experiments; a set of recommendations and an “option generator” for the development and deployment of mobility solutions addressing the needs of vulnerable user communities in European prioritised areas

Within IP4 more than 10 projects have created a wide array of technologies that tackles carious aspects of traveller experience. Those technologies tackle the interoperability of Transport Service Providers’ (TSPs) services, travel shopping, booking & ticketing, trip tracking, travel companion technologies and business analytics. Various tools have been tested in various locations around Europe retrieved user feedback and improved upon the feedback. Today, IP4 has a large toolset of proven technologies that need to go to the next level; become ready to be implemented in large scale products. IP4MaaS will assist IP4 projects to demonstrate the technologies at an unprecedented level: 6 different locations in Europe including more than 10 transport operators (Public Transport and Mobility-as-a-Service), authorities and agencies. IP4MaaS will develop the scenarios for the demonstrations and a thorough assessment strategy for the demonstrations that tackles both the performance of the demonstrations as well as the impact of the technologies on users and the environment in urban and suburban setups. IP4MaaS will create strategic plans for the demonstrations that will be updated in two iterations leading to two demonstration phases. Furthermore, the project will provide recommendations regarding the promotion and transferability of the technologies to other locations in Europe. IP4MaaS will organise and monitor one of the largest demonstrations of technologies in European project’s history and expects its findings to be used as a baseline for future demonstrations and testing that involves a diverse group of demo partners.