BSC, Business Support Centre, Ltd, Kranj – Regional Development Agency of Gorenjska organised the 4th transnational forum for adopting electric mobility in underserved rural and remote mediterranean areas, on the 17th of June, in Bohinjska Bistrica and a study visit on the 18th of June 2025 in Municipality Bohinj, Slovenia.
Twenty-six partners, from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosna and Hercegovina, Bulgaria, Greece exchanged their experience in implementation of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, implementation of car sharing systems and transport on call and monitoring of these services through the unique monitoring platform established by International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE), Spain.
In many rural and remote areas of mediterranean countries the lack of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles is still a challenge municipalities need to tackle. The same can be stated for the sustainable mobility services like car-sharing systems and transport on call.
In rural and remote areas, the demand for charging electric vehicles is not as high as in urban areas or it is linked to a seasonal demand due to tourism activities, both reasons make investments in charging infrastructure by private corporate investors less attractive than in urban areas.
For a similar reason providing frequent daily public bus transport and having bus lines to very sparsely populated areas does not make economic sense.
Therefore, local or regional communities and supportive organisations, like development agencies, transport, energy and environment agencies, national parks in some cases and similar organisations play an important role in improving sustainable mobility with flexible and economically sensible transport services and facilitation of electric mobility which has low negative environmental impact to such rural areas.
Car-sharing systems and transport on call with electric vehicles is a flexible, comfortable, fast alternative to conventional public transportation systems and can be a very good solution for a remote and rural areas, enabling socially vulnerable groups of people more independence and mobile safety. For tourists they may provide a convenient first or last kilometre transport to or from the main public transport lines. Transport on call can also be used within park and ride systems, reducing the number of personal vehicles parking in inappropriate places.
The host, BSC, Ltd, Kranj, introduced some good practices within the study visit, existing in Bohinj Municipality, which is a part of Triglav National Park. The Triglav National Park Public Institute has by public co-financing acquired electric vehicles and five of them leased to five municipalities in the area of Triglav National Park. Municipality Bohinj uses the electric van (e-van) for transport on call. There has been an existing charging infrastructure enabling slow charging of e-van, however, an increasing demand for transport on call enquires faster charging. For this purpose and for the purpose of promoting electric mobility in general, BSC, Ltd, Kranj has with European Regional Development Fund co-financing within Interreg Euro-MED Programme, and municipal support, set up an ABB electric charging station with the 22KW AC and 50kW DC charging option in a perfect park and ride location in the parking lot camp Danica, near the camp and a restaurant, giving a charging station high utilisation opportunity.
The event was a part of the Adopting electric mobility in underserved rural and remote mediterranean areas – the RuralMED Mobility – project.
