Allinx gives mobility management professionals a group hug

The Allinx website removes the blinders from mobility management professionals and gets them networking and sharing information.

Digital playing field
Mobility management is about promoting sustainable transport and managing car use by changing travellers’ attitudes and behaviour. A key part of achieving these worthy objectives comes down to ‘soft’ measures such as information and communication.

If you’re a regular reader of MindsinMotion.net, you’ll know there are many mobility management projects going on across Europe. But many of the people running these projects didn’t have an easy way to talk to each other.

René Teeuwen is co-founder of Allinx and managing director of AXU, a marketing and communications agency specialising in traffic and transport. He says: “Allinx is a community site for people working in the field, linking them to professionals who have the information and contacts they need. It is their digital playing field.”

Different
What makes Allinx different from apparently similar websites is that, while it shares information, it is not a database of mobility management projects. As well as uploading general mobility management information, a user can post questions about specific issues and the site allows other users to respond with their own experiences.

René says: “As well as directly responding to users, the general information posted on Allinx – a video, an article – is often interesting because someone you know or another expert has expressed the desire to share it and can comment on it.”

Allinx also fulfils an information capture role. As the lifecycle of a typical European mobility management project is very short, there can be a wealth of information available that disappears once the project is complete.

René: “Over just a few years, a lot of knowledge is developed. But once the projects stop, the information and contacts can disappear from the internet forever. Allinx can preserve the knowledge and contacts of these projects, allowing professional to refer to them months or years later.”

Don't keep reinventing the wheel
AXU developed Allinx in conjunction with the European Platform on Mobility Management (EPOMM), a network of European governments involved in the field.

“AXU maintains the website and EPOMM promotes the development and active use of the website through its own communication channels. Promoting the use of Allinx is vital to avoid the repetition of work and increase mobility management success across Europe,“ says René.

"It’s important to not keep reinventing the wheel. Out of the 27 European Union member countries, nearly all of them have to deal with congestion and carbon dioxide emissions, and many of the problems they face are the same. We need key players, such as decision makers, policymakers, consultants, project developers and employers, to join Allinx and share ideas and solutions.”

Engage
Allinx still has a long way to go to achieve its goal of being a fully functioning online European community, although René is positive about the website’s role.

“We don’t know how many people in Europe are professionally engaged with mobility management – maybe a few thousand, maybe more. It depends how you define mobility management. There are currently a couple of hundred professionals active on Allinx and the number is growing every day,” he explains.

Allinx is great idea in theory. But it relies on the active contributions of professionals to make an impact. And until those professionals look up from their desks and engage with their peers, the theory will continue to outshine the reality.