Improving transport for isolated villagers

Picture the scene: you live in a small rural village and need to make a trip to another village nearby. There are no direct transport links between the two so you’re forced to make a long bus journey to the nearest town where you wait for a connection to your destination. Then, you do it all in reverse on the way back. By the time you get home, you’ve spent most of the day and a small fortune on four separate buses.

This is what the residents of the Stradella region in Italy have to put up with every day. With 28 villages spread over a 234 km2 area, public transport works on a radial system that connects Stradella town in the north with other large municipalities. Great if you happen to live along the route or want to travel into town. Not so great if you want to travel between adjacent villages. To make matters worse, services are infrequent with long wait times. No wonder most rural residents rely on private vehicles to get around.

This was the situation when Shotl was called in by Stradella City Council. The challenge was to modernize the system and make it more convenient for rural users.

Solution

We switched traditional fixed-route-and-schedule transit to fully flexible DRT. Between 07:00-19:00 Monday to Saturday, users can request a pick-up and drop-off via the app from any of the 249 virtual stops set up across a 130 km2 area covering Stradella town and surrounding villages.

Since the distances involved are large, users tend to favor the “scheduled ride” function over “right now” bookings. Therefore, we adapted our algorithms to ensure pick-up and drop-off times are strictly respected.

Shotl provided a white label Passenger App called MioBus, the Driver App, Central Control Console, driver training, marketing materials, and technical support.

Autoguidovie provided the vehicles, drivers, and driver’s tablets, and promoted the service locally. Stradella Regional Council funded the service.

Outcome

This was Shotl’s largest area of operations to date and the perfect place to implement flexible on-demand services. From the initial launch with two vehicles on weekdays, the service was quickly expanded to include an additional two buses on Saturdays. Based on this successful deployment, Shotl has since gone on to set up five similar services for the same customer.

By switching from inflexible transport planning to an active demand-led approach, Stradella has improved quality of life for rural residents and taken an important step toward achieving carbon-neutral goals.

Key results

? User numbers grew rapidly in response to the improved service.

? Two vehicles proved sufficient to serve the entire area.

? Driver navigation and guidance systems have been improved with digital tools. Previously, selecting the optimal route between villages required highly detailed knowledge of the area, which was not always available.

Beneficiaries

? Stradella residents have a more convenient, flexible service that saves them time and money. Young and elderly residents can access essential services without having to rely on others, which reduces the pressure on families and carers.

? Transport authority Autoguidovie has improved the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of services. By becoming a pioneering digital service provider, it has grown its business volume and gained better data and insights into user needs and behavior.

? Stradella Regional Council has fulfilled its mandate to provide better public transit services and made Stradella a greener, more attractive place to live.

? The local community has successfully adopted smart city mobility and technology. Younger generations are learning that it is possible to live in outlying villages without owning a car.