The pilot involved testing of an on-demand transportation service for residents and visitors to the Sphere Housing Estate in Jaworzno. The aim of the pilot was to increase public transport availability for the local residents by providing them with the possibility of ordering an electric minibus ride with a mobile app.
Urban development is not always accompanied by simultaneous expansion of the public transportation network. As a result, new areas and neighbourhoods appear where the availability of public transportation is insufficient to encourage residents to use it instead of their private cars. One of the places struggling with such a problem is the newly built Sfera Housing Estate, where the City of Jaworzno and PKM Jaworzno have decided to test on-demand transportation services.
The key issue faced by residents was the lack of a bus stop close to the estate. The nearest stops are Geosfera and Niedzieliska located, depending on where you live, from 300 to 900 meters away.
In collaboration with Blees, PKM Jaworzno implemented a solution to bring public transportation services closer to the residents. The solution consisted of three elements.
Passengers could use the mobile app to order a ride at a time convenient to them. The app enabled the passengers to choose their arrival or departure time, allowing to plan transfers at the Geosfera or Niedzieliska stops with minimal waiting time. For those planning to commute to work/school, the app offered the option to book a ride 24 hours in advance.
Passenger requests were fed into the system, which arranged the route in real time so as to guarantee that passengers would be dropped off and picked up at a time of their choosing without delay. Thanks to the algorithms developed by Blees, not a single passenger arrived after their promised arrival time, which minimised the risk of being late for a connecting bus.
Smooth rides were facilitated by the driver’s app, which collected real-time passenger requests and information about the stop to be visited next. The app simplified the process so that the driver didn’t have to plan the sequence of passenger pickups but only navigate as directed by the app and mark the pick-up and drop-off of passengers as completed.
“We are pleased that it will be the residents of our housing estate who have the opportunity to be the first users of the on-demand transportation solution. The launch of a bus that can take passengers to one of the nearby stops will further improve Sfera’s transport connections and we hope will encourage residents to use public transportation more often. At the same time, we believe such a transportation service would work the other way around, making the neighbourhood more attractive and innovative,” said Janusz Łach, President of JTBS.
“After a few months, we will evaluate the performance of the app and either expand the project or abandon it. On-demand transportation with IT support can be very efficient, meet the needs of residents very well, and does not have to cost much at the same time,” clarified Zbigniew Nosal.
