The EU project MORECO was successfully completed!
Research Studio iSPACE – Creative and reliable partner in international projects
Mobility and housing costs at a click – successful conclusion of the EU project MORECO. Housing and household calculators as innovative and practical research outputs.
At the final conference on MORECO in Lyon (France) on 17 June, Deputy Governor Dr.in Astrid Rössler and other representatives of the MORECO project regions signed the “Common Declaration” for the support of sustainable settlement development and the reduction of motorised private transport in the Alpine region.
The project partners, led by lead partner SIR, looked back on three successful years of cooperation and presented the most important results of the project. Dagmar Schnürch of the Research Studio iSPACE successfully presented the settlement calculator developed by iSPACE.
The project: “MORECO” stands for “mobility and residential costs” and is a transnational EU project with partners from Austria, Germany, France, Slovenia and Italy. The EU project is trend-setting for Salzburg’s regional planning and the further development of public transport in the state. For the first time, citizens and decision-makers can compare residential and mobility costs free of charge and “with one click” on the Internet.
As a project partner of the SIR (Salzburg Institute for Spatial Planning & Housing), the “Research Studio iSPACE” developed two cost calculators: the MORECO household calculator for people looking for accommodation and the MORECO settlement calculator for decision-makers in municipalities, for regional associations, regional planners and the housing industry.
Project results: The MORECO Household Calculator has been online since autumn 2013 and can be used free of charge at www.moreco.at/haushaltsrechner Users can use it to unbureaucratically calculate their individual housing costs, mobility costs and the time required for commuting to work, school, shopping or leisure activities, starting from their current place of residence or a planned housing project in the federal state of Salzburg. Numerous positive reactions from users show that the calculator closes an information gap for people looking for accommodation.
Feedback and suggestions for further development on the part of the users can be sent directly via a “feedback button”.
The MORECO Housing Calculator, which can be accessed at www.moreco.at/siedlungsrechner, has also been launched successfully. The calculator supports mayors, municipal representatives, experts such as regional and local planners and the building industry in the development of housing in the Flachgau region. The settlement calculator is an aid and serves as a decision support for the development and dedication of new living space. The main focus in the evaluation of settlement areas is the connection of the future areas to public transport and frequently used infrastructure facilities such as schools, kindergartens, local suppliers, doctors, etc.
The MORECO – settlement calculator uses current SAGIS data (geographical data of the country) as an optimal basis for the evaluation of planned settlements. One of the innovations is that these data are automatically loaded after selecting a location and the user only has to enter a few parameters himself. This has not been the case with comparable applications in Austria so far and contributes significantly to the user-friendliness of the computer.
In addition to the pilot region Salzburg, the settlement calculator has already been successfully implemented in other regions of the Alpine Space, including Jugovzhodna Slovenija (Slovenia), Rhône-Alpes (France) and Mantua (Italy). In the long term, the MORECO settlement calculator is to be extended to all regions of Salzburg and become a fixed component of spatial planning in the state and municipalities.
Further activities of MORECO aim at comprehensive information, consulting and awareness raising.
Statements on the project:
Deputy Governor Dr.in Astrid Rössler
“The two computers are an important tool for citizens, experts and politicians. It is important to me that we continue the ‘spirit’ of MORECO! The calculators must continue to be available to users free of charge, because even more people should think about the costs that mobility and housing cause in combination”.
Dr. Friedrich Mair, Office of the Provincial Government of Salzburg, Dept. 7: Regional Planning
“The state development programme stipulates that settlement development should only take place at suitable locations. These are those with an efficient public transport connection, with existing local supply, with social and educational facilities and with recreational and leisure facilities in the local area. MORECO records these facilities. The newly developed MORECO settlement calculator has already been successfully used by us in local spatial planning to examine settlement development projects.
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