CIPTEC · Project

Crowdsourced Innovation Tools to Help Public Transport Win Back Riders

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Imagine buses and trams losing passengers to cars and ride-hailing apps, and nobody at the transit agency really knows why or what to do about it. This project went straight to the source — thousands of citizens — and asked them what would make public transport worth choosing. They built an online crowdsourcing platform where riders submit and vote on ideas, then tested what actually triggers people to change their commuting habits, not just in surveys but on real streets. The result is a practical toolkit that helps transit operators design services people genuinely want to use.

By the numbers

EUR 3,498,350

EU funding for development of public transport innovation tools

Consortium partners across the value chain

European countries where the approach was developed and tested

Total project deliverables produced

SMEs involved in the consortium

58%

Industry partner ratio in the consortium

The business problem

What needed solving

Public transport operators across Europe face a persistent challenge: ridership is stagnating or declining while private cars and new mobility options pull passengers away. Most transit agencies rely on top-down planning and infrequent passenger surveys, missing what riders actually want. Without tools to systematically tap into citizen ideas and understand the real psychological triggers behind commuting choices, operators invest in improvements that fail to attract new passengers.

The solution

What was built

A crowdsourcing platform where citizens submit and evaluate public transport innovation ideas, plus 23 deliverables including behavioral experimentation methods for understanding commuter motivation, marketing research tools for transit agencies, co-creation methodologies for designing services with passengers, and a practical toolkit for translating research insights into on-the-ground transit improvements.

Audience

Who needs this

Urban public transport authorities looking to increase ridershipMaaS platform operators integrating public transit into their service bundlesSmart city consultancies advising municipalities on sustainable mobilitySocial enterprises developing community-driven transport solutionsTransit technology vendors building passenger engagement products

Business applications

Who can put this to work

Public transport operations

enterprise

Target: Urban transit operators and public transport authorities

If you are a transit operator struggling with declining ridership and stale service offerings — this project developed a crowdsourcing platform and behavioral research methodology tested across 7 European countries. It lets you tap into collective intelligence from your own riders to identify which service innovations actually drive mode shift, so you invest in changes that fill seats rather than guessing.

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)

SME

Target: MaaS platforms and shared mobility startups

If you are a mobility platform trying to integrate public transport into your offering but struggling with low adoption — this project produced consumer behavior research and motivation triggers tested in real-life conditions across 12 partner organizations. You can use their demand-side insights to design bundled products that match what commuters actually respond to, not what planners assume they want.

Smart city consulting

any

Target: Urban planning consultancies and municipal innovation labs

If you advise cities on sustainable mobility and need evidence-based methods for citizen engagement — this project delivered 23 concrete deliverables including co-creation tools and a crowdsourcing platform for public transport innovation. It gives you a ready-made, tested process for running citizen-driven transit improvement programs backed by EU-funded research from a 12-partner consortium.

Frequently asked

Quick answers

What would it cost to implement these tools?

The project itself received EUR 3,498,350 in EU funding across 12 partners, suggesting significant R&D investment. The crowdsourcing platform and behavioral tools were developed as part of that budget. Based on available project data, licensing or deployment costs for individual transit operators are not specified — you would need to negotiate directly with the consortium.

Can this scale to a large metropolitan transit network?

The project was designed for European city-scale public transport and tested across 7 countries with diverse transit systems. The crowdsourcing platform is digital and inherently scalable. However, behavioral experiments were city-specific, so adapting the motivation triggers to your local context would require some calibration work.

Who owns the intellectual property?

As a Research and Innovation Action funded under Horizon 2020, IP typically stays with the consortium partners who created it. The coordinator is Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Based on available project data, specific licensing terms for the crowdsourcing platform or methodology are not publicly detailed.

Has this been tested with real passengers or just in a lab?

The project explicitly states they tested behavioral change triggers 'not only in the lab but in real life' and worked with transit operators to apply insights into 'concrete street-action.' The crowdsourcing platform was listed as a demonstrator deliverable, indicating it was deployed and used with actual participants.

How does this fit with existing transit planning systems?

CIPTEC was designed as a complementary layer — it adds demand-side intelligence and citizen co-creation to existing planning processes. The 23 deliverables include a 'translation-in-a-box' of results meant for practical integration by transit providers. The consortium included 7 industry partners, suggesting the tools were built with operational compatibility in mind.

What regulatory requirements does this address?

The project targets the EU urban mobility agenda and sustainable transport goals, specifically tackling urban road congestion reduction. Based on available project data, it does not directly address specific regulatory compliance but supports policy objectives around modal shift and sustainable urban transport planning.

Is there ongoing support or has the project ended?

CIPTEC officially closed in April 2018. The project website (ciptec.eu) may still host resources and the crowdsourcing platform. For continued support or collaboration, you would need to contact the consortium partners directly, starting with Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as coordinator.

Consortium

Who built it

This is a well-balanced consortium of 12 partners from 7 countries, with a notably high industry ratio of 58% — meaning more than half the partners come from the business side rather than academia. Five of those are SMEs, which suggests practical, market-oriented thinking shaped the outputs. Only 2 universities are involved (including the coordinator, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), keeping the academic-to-industry balance tilted toward implementation. The 7-country spread across Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, Netherlands, and the UK gives the results broad European applicability. For a business considering these tools, the strong industry presence in the consortium is a positive signal that the deliverables were designed with real operational needs in mind, not just research papers.

ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKISCoordinator · EL
MEMEX SRLparticipant · IT
TERO MONOPROSOPI IKEparticipant · EL
TRAFFIQ LOKALE NAHVERKEHRSGESELLSCHAFT FRANKFURT AM MAIN MBHparticipant · DE
WHITE RESEARCH SRLparticipant · BE
EUROPEAN PASSENGERS' FEDERATION IVZWparticipant · BE
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVENparticipant · BE
EMTA EUROPEAN METROPOLITAN TRANSPORT AUTHORITIESparticipant · FR
TIEMME SPAparticipant · IT
ORTELIO LTDparticipant · UK

How to reach the team

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) — reach out through their transport research department or the CIPTEC project website contact page

Order a report on this consortium See ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS profile →

Next steps

Talk to the team behind this work.

Want an introduction to the CIPTEC team or a tailored briefing on how their crowdsourcing tools could work for your transit network? Contact SciTransfer — we connect businesses with EU research teams.

Order a report on this topic More in Transport & Mobility