page_title: Hitchhiking
section_title: Public policy support
hierarchical_section_title: Hitchhiking / Public policy support
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Mitfahrerbank am Neumarkt, Flensburg
context_page_description: Hitchhiking is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free.
  Itinerants have also used hitchhiking as a primary mode of travel for the better part of the last century, and continue to do so today.
context_section_description: Since the mid-2010s, local authorities in rural areas in Germany have started to support hitch-hiking, and this has spread to Austria and the German-speaking region of Belgium. The objectives are both social and environmental: as ridesharing improves mobility for local residents (particularly young and old people without their own cars) in places where public transport is inadequate, thus improving etworking among local communities in an environmentally friendly way. This support typically takes the form of providing hitch-hiking benches (in German Mitfahrbänke) where people hoping for a ride can wait for cars. These benches are usually brightly coloured and located at the exit from a village, sometimes at an existing bus stop lay-by where vehicles can pull in safely. Some are even provided with large fold-out or slide-out signs with place names allowing hitchers to clearly signal where they want to go. Some Mitfahrbänke have been installed wth the help of the EU's LEADER programme for rural local development
  In Austria, Mitfahrbänke are especially common in Lower Austria and Tyrol, and are promoted by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism under its klimaaktiv climate protection initiative. In 2018 the Tyrolean MobilitäterInnen network published a Manual for the Successful Introduction of Hitch-hiking Benches.
caption: Mitfahrbank with destination signs in Flensburg
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