Among the improvements proposed in the Action Plan for the North East Region of Romania are specific ones for each of its six county seats. During Phase 1, the municipality of Piatra Neamț and SHARE partner North-East Regional Development Agency had identified the goals of reducing bureaucracy and average waiting time in queues in public institutions, and improving the technical and municipal infrastructure.
The city moved quickly to enact the policy improvement, with the “Passport to Mobility” announced in Piatra Neamț's Local Governance Program 2019 by Mayor Dragos Chitic. As implemented, the Piatra Neamț City App opens a simple two-way communications channel between residents and city hall. Users receive alerts and updated information about road conditions, accidents and other public hazards, as well as city news. Citizens can quickly report situations needing intervention from the city, such as problems with public transit or street lighting, fallen trees, flooded intersections, and so on.
Visitors and residents alike benefit from the app’s information about events, tourist attractions, public transportation, tourist itineraries, exhibitions, accommodations, parking and the area’s natural and cultural heritage. Since its release, the app has been downloaded not only in Romania but in other European countries and even the United States.
The LAP for the North East Region credits the idea for the app to the project’s interregional learning, and particularly the Vadstena (SE) app which was demonstrated in its pre-release version at the meeting hosted there in October 2018. The developers of the Discover Vadstena app described their intention to give visitors a complete suite of geolocalised information about the village history, attractions and services, paperlessly.
