Figure 1: nuMIDAS methods and tools design approach
The nuMIDAS project conducted research to gain a deep understanding of the weaknesses of existing methods and tools supporting transport/mobility researchers, planners, and policy makers, as well as the identification of critical parameters that need to be updated, extended, removed, or completely re-drafted. The emergence of new mobility solutions and technologies has significantly affected the principles upon which current practices are based. The results are now published and available in Deliverable 3.1.
Our research takes new concepts into account, required to assess more realistically and in an updated manner transport users’ attitudes, preferences, and choices, and how they have reshaped their overall mobility behaviour due to the emergence of these solutions. For each of the six selected use cases, an extensive review of the existing methods and tools was prepared.
A final list of critical risks was identified through several risk analysis methodologies. These risks need to be taken into account by the methods and tools that are being developed within the framework of nuMIDAS. For this, three sources were used (i) a survey conducted within the activities of WP2 targeting key stakeholders of the aforementioned ecosystem (e.g., mobility researchers, relevant governmental authorities, and transport companies), (ii) a survey prepared for the pilot sites to collect the data on the risks related to pilot sites’ services, and (iii) a literature review and desk research on identification of various risks related to the deployment of services.
The identified risks were further analysed in detail, looking at them from a political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal angle. The added value of our risk analysis lies in not only identifying a list of risks and treating them as if they had an equal likelihood, importance on the project and easiness/difficulty to address, but on the contrary, as it differentiates between risks that should be looked at with absolute priority over others.
Combining these inputs, there is a clear mapping of risks that will require the first and foremost attendance of the project consortium. They are identified as the following:
- Lack of certain data inputs to provide service(s) (i.e. data on peak demand conditions to determine a fleet size)
- Poor quality and accuracy of received data
- Lack of commitment of stakeholders to provide necessary data for analysis
- High/extra costs to purchase necessary data from commercial parties
- Public sector bureaucracy restrains the implementation of new technologies and new services
- Lack of data standardisation
- Impossibility to use historical data (e.g., vehicle registration) for analysis because it is not publicly available and may be considered under GDPR
- Lack of legal framework for development and implementation of new technologies
- Lack of a GDPR compliant method to obtain vehicle type data from the national access point for vehicle registration
- Lack of knowledge on human behaviour and end-user’s rapid changing mobility needs
It is interesting to highlight that according to the Pareto analysis, 80 % of the effects come from 20 % of the causes. Most of the high priority risks were classified as technical (60%), while the rest of them were equally distributed between political, economic, and legal.