Accompanying scientific research on the development of Zuugle - the search engine for publically accessible hiking routes

Within the frame of the overall project, the content of the public transport search engine "Zuugle" is to be developed and programmed. While work packages 1 and 3 deal with technical aspects of programming, work package 2, subcontracted to BOKU, aims to investigate the needs of potential users in order to integrate them into the platform as early as possible. This work package tries to get the views of various different groups of people on the topic of sustainable travel to mountain sports areas for leisure purposes. In order to capture the different opinions and inspirations as best as possible, qualitative interviews and workshops will be conducted, which will allow an explorative approach with the greatest possible depth of content. This is chosen in tourism and mobility research especially when strongly divergent and partly unknown perceptions, attitudes and behaviour patterns are to be observed, which is expected in tour and public transport journey planning. In the context of this work package, different groups of people will be interviewed who share an interest in mountain sports (hiking, via ferrata, mountain biking, etc.), but who differ in their affinity to the use of public transport (public transport users vs. car drivers or passengers) and socio-demographic characteristics. In order to cover different geographical conditions, the interviews were conducted in hiking areas of three different federal provinces (Lower Austria, Salzburg and Styria), with the corresponding main starting points (Vienna, Salzburg, Graz) as tour starting points.