Leicester City Council

Governments and councils across the globe have committed to tackling climate change, of which transport is one of the biggest contributors. MaaS apps can promote sustainable mobility options to help reduce carbon emissions. Seeing the CO₂ impact of trip alternatives in the app allows users to gage the footprint of their transport choices. The ability to integrate incentives into the platform means users can be encouraged to leave their car at home in favour of public transport, micro-mobility, cycling or walking, to help shift commuter behaviour towards sustainable travel. Sophisticated active travel routing, which seamlessly connects to the public transport system can help shift traffic to lower congestion modes. Our work with Leicester City Council is aiming to improve air quality by encouraging this modal shift.

Who is the client?

Leicester City Council serves the people, communities and businesses of Leicester, the biggest city in the East Midlands. Leicester is the largest city in the East Midlands and the tenth largest in the country, with a population of more than 600,000.

The problem

Leicester City Council were looking to implement a journey planning system into the Choose How You Move website, as well as an app available through the major marketplaces.

The Council was looking for a solution that:

Supports their active travel program
Reduces city traffic congestion
Lowers carbon emissions
Encourages and promotes cycling

The solutions

Developing and implementing a journey planner was identified as a solution since it will enable residents and visitors to find out how current or new journeys can be taken by sustainable transport. A journey planner allows residents and visitors to visualise their journeys and understand the many benefits of using sustainable transport.

White Label

Leicester City Council adopted the SkedGo White Label solution with apps for both iOS and Android.

Provide a real-time journey planner that will act as the region’s specialized search engine used to find optimal means of transport between points of origin and destination
Provide a mobility solution to support the council’s active travel program
Integrate Park and Ride facilities
Promote green modal options
Enable customer service staff to produce journey plants for businesses.
Comply with the Accessibility standard

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Journey Planner Widget

Overall, the apps support the Council’s goals to improve air quality across Leicestershire by encouraging a shift towards active and sustainable travel for commuting and leisure trips.

The project also integrates SkedGo’s Web Widget solution into the Choose How You Move website, as well as providing customisation to ensure branding is consistent and engaging.

The web widget was also used to embed the journey planner into the Leicester Buses website, allowing for preference-based, door-to-door bus trip planning. It also helps promote a wide range of local bus travel options.

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Feedback

We chose to partner with SkedGo as we felt that their product offered the best functionality and design for journey planning. We were particularly impressed with its ability to combine multiple modes of transport (e.g. cycle – bus – walk) on a single journey as well as its calculation and display of cost, calories burnt and carbon emitted per journey.

Working with SkedGo on developing and implementing their widget into the ChooseHowYouMove website has been excellent. They have been happy to fit in around our schedule and have provided regular communication on the progress of the project from start to finish.

Additionally, they have been very accommodating and patient with all our requirements and have been helpful in guiding us through the relevant processes. Ultimately, we are very pleased with their product and look forward to continued collaboration with SkedGo.”
Max S. Longley, Transport Development Officer
Leicester City Council

The partnership with SkedGo aims to help make bus travel easier, by allowing users to plan their journey on one central website, rather than having to visit each individual operator’s website for their bus travel needs. This is one of the main steps in helping to make the Leicester Buses website the ‘go to’ place for information on bus travel in Leicester. Our goal is to bring transformative change in bus travel that’s electric, frequent, reliable, easy and great value.
Leicester Buses

MaaS doesn’t have to be complicated. Our widget and white label solutions are a perfect tool for local governments to quickly and efficiently act on their sustainability and social equity commitments.

We have built a strong focus on active travel, for example bike-friendly routing, into our technology and are constantly improving our accessibility features. New clients can easily tap into these resources, which have been tried and tested over years.

It’s great to see Leicester at the forefront of MaaS in the UK and we are very excited to build on our existing offering for the community for a wider audience.
John Nuutinen, CEO of SkedGo