Good practice:

SMARTA2, a mobility-related application in the Municipality of Trikala, Greece

An app has been developed by the Municipality of Trikala, Greece, in the frame of SMARTA2 project, aiming to create a user-friendly multi-level online service that will reduce individual car trips from suburban areas to the city center and will promote sustainable urban and rural mobility.
This service includes an online application that allows citizens to access real-time public transport information, such as the arrival of a bus at a specific bus stop, or on-demand request for a bus, along with available carpooling options. Thus, the residents of the rural area outside the city of Trikala are able to coordinate and “share” their travels to and from the city center through online matching.
The app also includes an online pre-booking system for services such as municipal storage lockers, wheelchair scooters, or shared bicycles, offered in the city’s main square info point. This way all citizens and visitors can move around without using their car, having booked from their mobile phone for a locker with a key (in case they need to store their personal belongings while dealing with other obligations in the city) and for a bicycle for their easy movement. The bookings can be flexibly made digitally and anonymously, respecting all GDPR regulations.
To sum up, the app incorporates all mobility services provided in the city of Trikala, while introducing new ones. It is scalable and, in fact, e-Trikala SA plans to incorporate new services such as AVs and UAVs in the near future.

In this case, with so many options provided to the user, the design and development cost of the app was 24.700 Euro in total. The annual maintenance cost is estimated between 2.000-3.000 Euro (VAT included).

During the 5-month pilot period, the results were progressively increasing despite the COVID-19 mobility restrictions:
From 0 ride-sharing trips at the beginning (baseline) -> 155
From 0 infopoint pre-bookings -> 630 (236 for municipal lockers, 371 shared bikes, 23 wheelchair scooters)
From 0 carpooling vehicles in the area -> 17
90% of users stated they are quite or very satisfied with the services
77% of users found the app quite or very easy to use
400 downloads
> 300 single users

The significant mobility restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 situation affected the dynamic potential of this app which refers to the successful deployment of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS).

A mobility-related app, like this one, that (i) digitilizes existing services through an online booking system, (ii) facilitates carpooling options and matching, (iii) provides real-time information about the available transport modes, (iv) promotes sustainable rural mobility to and from the city center, can:
- improve people's accessibility and reduce waiting hours/frustration
- reduce the traffic congestion in the city center and the CO2 emissions
- promote familiarization with MaaS schemes as well as travel planning in advance
- allow data collection
- introduce the concepts of sustainable mobility and shared mobility to the local rural community
After deciding the desired features, the prerequisite of this practice is, firstly, to ensure the funding and then, to launch the procurement process towards the recruitment of a reliable subcontractor for the development of the mobile app, in case it cannot be realized in-house. Also, it may be a strong asset to attract new projects.