TIP - Articles and news items

Andante: a new mobility concept and an interoperability dream

Issue 4 2009, Past issues / 20 September 2009 / Mário Coutinho dos Santos, Chief Financial Officer of Metro do Porto and Chief Executive Officer of TIP

The Andante intermodal system aims to provide a new concept in public transportation, and is based on an integrated mobility system focused on the customer and oriented by the market. In contrast with traditional transport systems, Andante is based on co-opetition (cooperative competition) among various transport operators, who assume a new role on the transport system: mobility providers.

The last decades have witnessed substantive changes in mobility patterns. The development of new centralities in metropolitan areas has induced new flows of mobility within their most peripheral regions. At the same time, motives for travelling have also developed beyond the most traditional commuter trips, such as home-work and home-school, which has introducing greater complexity to travelling on public transport networks. The cumulative effect of these two phenomena may contribute to explain the sustained reduction in the quota of public transport since the early 1990s.

(more…)