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User Needs for a Mobility App to Support Living in Rural Areas

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Electronic Participation (ePart 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12849))

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Abstract

Among the biggest challenges rural areas currently face are the impact of demographic change and limited mobility offers. While younger people tend to either move to urban areas or have their own car at hand for satisfying everyday needs, elderly or people with compromised health suffer most from these challenges. They prefer to live in their habitual and familiar environment and remain mobile for as long as possible. To enable self-determined living in rural areas and to make rural areas more attractive as places to live, municipalities and regions with substantial rural character need to develop concepts and modern digital solutions to achieve these objectives. In this paper, we introduce stakeholder-driven requirements elicitation for a mobility platform, which supports local communities and citizens in remaining autonomous in their living. The aim of the mobile app is to intelligently match offers of different mobility providers (e.g. voluntary drivers, public transportation services, taxis drivers etc.) with citizens’ mobility demands in rural areas. Citizens needing a ride can find, book and pay the best offer for their journeys through the app. They can also rate the mobility service after its use. In the paper, we present the findings from 60 semi-structured face-to-face interviews with elderly in rural areas, thereby applying qualitative and quantitative content analysis. The empirical results were transcribed, categorized and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. We conclude with recommendations for the design and implementation of the mobility app.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Statistisches Bundesamt (2021): Bevölkerungsvorausberechnung. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoelkerung/Bevoelkerungsvorausberechnung/_inhalt.html.

  2. 2.

    BMVI—Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur (2018) Breitbandatlas https://www.bmvi.de/SharedDocs/DE/Publikationen/DG/breitband-verfuegbarkeit-ende-2018.html.

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    Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (2019). Modell- und Demonstrationsvorhaben. https://www.bmel.de/DE/Laendliche-Raeume/BULE/zukunftsfelder/zukunftsfelder_node.html.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food, Germany, Ref. 2818LD026. For further info see swia-cochem-zell.de.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for IS Research, University of Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz, Germany

    Vera Spitzer & Maria A. Wimmer

Authors
  1. Vera Spitzer
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  2. Maria A. Wimmer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vera Spitzer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria

    Noella Edelmann

  2. Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

    Csaba Csáki

  3. University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Sara Hofmann

  4. Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria

    Thomas J. Lampoltshammer

  5. University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Laura Alcaide Muñoz

  6. Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria

    Peter Parycek

  7. University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Gerhard Schwabe

  8. University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Efthimios Tambouris

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Spitzer, V., Wimmer, M.A. (2021). User Needs for a Mobility App to Support Living in Rural Areas. In: Edelmann, N., et al. Electronic Participation. ePart 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12849. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82824-0_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82824-0_7

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-82823-3

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