Abstract

Recognising the urban-focus of many national and regional transport strategies, the purpose of this project is to explore how emerging technologies could support rural economies across the Midlands. Fundamentally, the rationale for the study is to begin with an assessment of rural needs and then exploring a range of mobility innovations, including social innovations as well as technologies, that can provide place-based solutions designed for more rural areas. This avoids the National Transport Strategy assumption that new mobility innovations will inevitably occur in urban areas and then be rolled out across more rural places. While economic realities mean that many private sector transport innovations can start out in urban centres, their rural impacts may be quite different and require alternative responses from rural planners and policy-makers.