The maintenance of a spatially and socially equal accessibility to services of general interest (SGI) is a core issue to the functionality of mountain areas. However, the ongoing territorial concentration of SGI leads to a vicious circle of further deterioration in the quality of provision which in turn causes a decreasing demand of the existing services. The withdrawal of SGI has many negative consequences for the affected regions of which a reduced functionality, competitiveness and a higher amount of motorised mobility are the most pertinent.

The ACCESS project therefore aims at improving the accessibility to SGI in sparsely populated, mountain areas. This will be done mainly by finding new forms of organisation of SGI, using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and fostering demand oriented, integrated mobility systems. To achieve these ambitious goals, ACCESS builds on a transnational approach and on participatory methodologies to assess the specific demands of stakeholders on different levels.

In all the partner countries regional teams are available and operational. The ACCESS website is growing and the associated filebase has become a popular tool for file exchange. A key event of the project implementation was the project steering commitee’s (PSC) meeting in Landeck (Austria) which was accompanied by a meeting of the advisory group (AG). The meeting was divided into an internal and a public part, the latter was attended by local/regional decision makers, representatives of national institutions and regional management. The advisory group passed their ordeal and gave valuable advice to the project steering committee regarding test areas and the regional analysis (RA). The Landeck meeting was also the starting point of the regional analysis, in which the accessibility of the services of general interest (SGI) in the test areas has been assessed. An approach combining a standardised set of indicators with qualitative information proved its effectiveness. The 3rd RP ended with the achievement of a milestone - the finalisation of the Regional Intermediate Reports.

In all partner regions meetings of regional teams have taken place, in which project management steps, responsibilities and further procedures have been decided. Besides the maintenance of the website, the I&P activities included the publishing of a 2nd newsletter and the preparation of a folder, that will present objectives, activities and results of the project to a wider public. The 2nd project steering meeting in Landeck was the kick off for the activities related to the regional analysis. Each partner collected data on the accessibility of services of general interest in their test areas through means of household surveys, analysis of existing statistical data and expert interviews. Emphasis was laid on public transport, goods of daily use and Information & Communication Technologies. The guideline for the data collection was a standardised set of indicators. The results were illustrated with maps and are published in the Regional Intermediate Reports, which are available on the ACCESS website.

1) Permanent activities: management of the regional teams, foster a network of experts and similar projects, permanent I&P activities and the core element: implementation of projects 2) Singular activities: performance of the 3rd transnational meeting in Yverdon and the preparation of the 4th transnational meeting (Carinthia 11-12.05.2010), synthesis of the Regional Intermediate Reports in a transnational intermediate report TIR (04.2010).