Objectives of the service:

Public transport in rural areas of South-Eastern Europe suffers from low ridership and infrequent service. However, several of these areas are tourism-heavy that could greatly benefit from an expansion of services to different sites of touristic interest. However, there is significant risk for transport providers in expanding their networks in areas of uncertain demand.  

DARTT aims to close this gap by providing a complete end-to-end solution for public transport providers to deploy on-demand transport services. Transport operators can then lower the risk of expanding their transport network, while offering passengers improved travelling experience. By offering a demand-responsive solution via our mobile apps, operators can create customized itineraries to additional bus stops only when they know that passengers exist for them.  

Passengers can then benefit from enhanced accessibility of tourist sites via (otherwise not available) public transport, avoiding having to use more expensive means e.g., taxis or car rental. The DARTT passenger app also provides curated tourist information, offering a one-stop user-friendly experience addressing the difficulties usually encountered by tourists in using public transport in rural areas.

Users and their needs:

DARTT targets Greece, as a characteristic pilot country, and the regional bus/coach companies of Greece (KTEL). These private entities operate regular bus services over specific areas. There are 62 rural & intercity companies of this type in the country. We initially focus on two KTELs as pilot customers.  

The foremost driving customer need in the target market is their economic viability. This is especially true in rural areas, where bus companies have few passengers and operate with low profit. KTELs are also not seen as flexible as private vehicles by new users. 

Potential DARTT users (passengers) can include residents and tourists visiting the area that wish to use public transport to reach a destination not regularly served by the KTEL. Tourists commonly face several difficulties in less touristically developed rural areas when using public transport: language barrier, lack of e-booking website / timetable / route / pricing information, difficulty in finding related information e.g., which route for specific sites, out of date information, etc. 

Other stakeholders also interested in DARTT can potentially include tourism-related stakeholders, e.g., hotel associations that wish to see the transport links of the area improved. These may not necessarily become direct customers but can help provide up-to-date local information. 

Service/system concept:

DARTT consists of a mobile app to be used by passengers, a mobile app for bus drivers, and a web app for bus company personnel and third-party tourism stakeholders to administer the service and the information it presents. 

Tourists can use the passenger mobile app to discover local sites serviced by a region’s buses, getting information about them and the transport services offered. DARTT will both showcase a region’s lesser visited, yet interesting sites, and offer bookings to reach them via scheduled or on-demand services. It integrates touristic product presentation and comprehensive public transport services to ease the difficulties traditionally encountered in visiting areas outside the mainstream.  

Passengers can use the app to discover an area’s interesting sites, check the bus routes & plan trips in the region, book tickets and receive notifications of news regarding points of interest or bus routes. 

The driver mobile app displays the updated route to follow in realtime, based on the on-demand bookings that have been made. It will also display how many passengers have booked tickets for each stop. It can also be used by the driver to enter information about the service, e.g., that there will be a delay. 

Space added value:

Satellite positioning is used by the DARTT driver mobile application to locate the buses in real time. This information is used by the DARTT backend services to decide the optimal scheduled service to amend with the additional on-demand stops.  

Satellite navigation is also used to guide drivers once such a stop has been added to a route. The real time updating of the location can make routes more flexible, as the system can immediately be informed of any delays without manual driver intervention. This can improve services e.g., by the system not offering to sell tickets to destinations that would miss connections due to delays.  

Satellite positioning/navigation is also used by the passenger mobile app to locate users so that they can find the bus stops, during their trip to show progress and announce the stop that they need to get off at, to navigate the ‘final mile’ (after they get off the bus to reach their destination) and used as trigger to provide contextual information about nearby sites or transport services. This will greatly reduce uncertainty of the travel experience and make it more accessible and pleasant for tourists in unfamiliar areas. 

For more info: https://business.esa.int/projects/dartt