Projects Smart Mobility Social Improvement
2 min.
Smart mobility. You’ve probably heard or read about the term, but what is exactly meant by it? The Smart Mobility Caribbean Foundation (SMCF), one of Curaçao’s most active proponents of local smart city practices, defines smart mobility as “a new and innovative way of approaching how we move from one point to another. How we move around in a cleaner, safer and more efficient way”. In their quest for a smarter Curaçao and Caribbean Netherlands as a whole, they have set up various initiatives and released several mobile apps over the past few years. In terms of smart mobility, the ABC Curaçao app in particular has piqued our interest. After all, smart mobility is also one of our own key areas of interest at Future Islands.
What is the Smart Mobility Caribbean Foundation?
The Smart Mobility Caribbean Foundation was founded in 2019 by five people who are still on the Board nowadays: Luigi Scotto (current President), Joost Schrier (current Vice President), Joûrich Christina (current Secretary), Nelson Mambre (current 2nd Secretary), and Richard Riedel (current Treasurer). They all met at the Curaçao Innovathon 2019, where the plans for the SMCF were awarded with the second prize in the category “Government Solutions”. Their first project as Foundation, the Curaçao 311 project, immediately gained attention and won the Curaçao Innovation Award that same year.
About the ABC Curaçao app
The immediate success of the Foundation’s first release only motivated the team more to keep on finding solutions for (everyday) problems on the island. As a result, in March of 2021, they launched another app, this time in collaboration with Autobusbedrijf Curaçao, also known as ABC Busbedrijf or simply ABC. This is the public transport provider on the island of Curaçao and therefore the perfect partner for the launch of the ABC Curaçao app by SMCF.
In reality, what the app does is quite simple and at the same time a life-changer for many people on the island. It collects data from the GPS transmitters on ABC’s vehicles to create detailed bus schedules, including departure times per stop. This might seem like a basic service to some, but until 2021, there was practically no way to find reliable digital public transport schedules in Curaçao. Nowadays, thanks to the ABC Curaçao app, people can see the scheduled departure times for more than 1,000 bus stops on the island.
More than just scheduling
The app offers more than just bus stop schedules, though. With the help of the massive amounts of data collected by the app, the development team also included a virtual trip planner. Users can simply enter a destination and the ABC app will provide several options to reach that destination using public transport, complete with exact times, bus information, and even the price of the bus fare. This is a useful feature for both locals and tourists. Besides bespoke travel schedules, the app also offers ABC’s own time schedules and maps of the different public transport routes on the island.
The ABC Curaçao app is currently available for free download in both the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. At the same time, improvement of the app is a constant process, so be sure to regularly check for updates.
The basis for this article was originally published on www.smartcaribbean.io and others in 2021.
