From stand-alone local accessibility enablers to integrated first-mile solutions: the role of DRT services within Beigua-SOL and Arroscia Valley Ligurian Internal Areas.

Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) services were firstly introduced with the aim of assuring mobility right to groups of users traditionally constrained in their possibility to access ordinary public transport supply (e.g. the elderly, people with disabilities, residents of peripheral and low-density areas), to release captive users. Nowadays, they are frequently addressed as first-mile solutions to be integrated within wider Mobility-as-a-Service ecosystems, enhancing modularity and customization, also due to higher ICT standards that have been developed. This originally niche solution has been indeed growingly applied to various targeted users and territorial contexts, in order to support an overall flexibilization of local public transport supply, matching sustainability and rationalization needs coming from mobility providers and local administrations. This progressive transformation -which is still on-going- developed into different ways to address DRT services. In this direction, Project Areas selected by National Strategy for Internal Areas have been one of the main test-beds for DRT solutions in Italy, recently, since they share accessibility and marginalization issues, as well as low transport demand levels. Consequently, several DRT initiatives have been launched, thus showing different approaches, depending on the perceived reliability and relevance of local mobility providers, as well as on administrative boundaries and specifical transport needs. In details, Beigua-SOL and Arroscia Valley case-studies from Liguria Region (in Italy) will be investigated, to deepen how DRT services may play a quite variable role, waving from stand-alone mobility enabler, linking sparse settlements thus supporting local accessibility and modal-shift, to first-mile solution pouring users into the main Public Transport network, thus constituting an interesting opportunity for mobility providers, as well.