Barcelona in the Pocket is a project created in line with the concepts of collaborative city, Mobile World Capital, innovation and entrepreneurship. The Barcelona in the Pocket project aims to use the full potential of the mobile environment in order to offer an easy and quick access to all the citizen orientated services, boost citizen engagement, reduce administrative burden, and improve the portfolio of services offered. It is a project which with the help of all players in the market - Barcelona’s Public Administration and citizens and industry - will foster the development of new technologies such as NFC or QR codes, or the improvement of the already existing ones, such as Wi-Fi, Smartphones, etc.

The project consists of the following types of services to the citizens:

• The mGovernment project intends to provide all the services offered by the government on mobile, in order to create a new channel of communication, more direct, effective and efficient.
• Apps4bcn aims to collect the most important mobile applications developed in order to improve the services and facilities offered in Barcelona. Its main goals are to boost the delivery of information though mobile and open data, create a web portal containing the most relevant apps and a network enabling interactions between all the players in the market, as well as to develop of an innovative ecosystem to attract talent and spread knowledge. This initiative is mainly driven by mobile workshops, contests, trainings, a community, and involves the active participation of the apps players in this sectors: developers and entrepreneurs.
• The mobileID digital identity system allows citizens to identify themselves remotely and securely by means of a digital ID in their mobile phone. It is based on a Register of Mobile Digital Identities that makes it possible to associate a mobile phone number with any citizen who wishes to have this new form of digital accreditation.
• And finally the most recent initiative is Barcelona Contactless, which aims to ease the daily interactions between citizens, tourists and the city, by using smartphones. Barcelona Contactless will create the right environment and a protocol to follow (images, technology, platforms…) for the whole city. This initiative is divided in two action plans, the first one was carried out in 2012 for the implementation of the payment services, and the second one was carried out in 2013 for the information services.

With the three initiatives, the Barcelona in the Pocket project will:

1. Boost the usage of mobile technologies to access all services of the city.
2. Streamline the mobile industry in Barcelona, positioning the city as a reference in this technology.
3. Redefine administration’s image by fostering transparency of public data.
4. Reorganize all processes and reduce administrative burden.
5. Improve the delivery cultural and recreational information to foster citizen participation.

The project enables to increase the efficiency of the city’s public administrations as the interactions through smartphones drastically reduce paperwork, enabling the delivering a substantially more efficient service.

Policy Context

Barcelona in the Pocket is driven by “l’habitat urbà”, and particularly the the Institut Municipal d’Informàtica (IMI), which is the municipal authority of Barcelona’s city council in charge of the development of new solutions relating to the environment and urban services, technologies, and housing.

This initiative was created as mobile technology entails more than having a set of mobile applications, it is a channel that enables interactions between government and citizens, involving a radical change in the city and solving the problems previously enumerated.

Description of target users and groups

The Barcelona in the Pocket project is aimed at citizens, as the services are provided with of view of facilitating citizens’ access to real time information, facilitate interactions with public authorities and catalyze the access to all the city’s services through mobile technologies.

Furthermore, the mobile industry in Barcelona is another target user. Indeed, the Barcelona in the Pocket project has enabled to create an innovative ecosystem to attract talent and spread knowledge, spurring developments in the industry and providing opportunities for collaboration.

Description of the way to implement the initiative

This project is the result of a public-private partnership (PPP), as well as open innovation through the organisation of contests and challenges. The project thus has direct impact in terms of creating new jobs and putting in contact entrepreneurs with big companies. It stimulates, notably through the apps4bcn portal, the creation of an ecosystem where enabling to satisfy the needs of citizens and boost innovation.

This project started in 2009 with the development of a Mobile Strategic Plan by consulting company whose aim was to define of all the possible services which could be developed using mobile technology among the ones offered by Barcelona’s City Council.

An internal and external analysis was carried out within the Mobile Strategic Plan in order to find and prioritize the services and classify them in four different groups: citizen services, leisure, mobility and other basic services. As laid out in this report, there was a substantial business case to develop the mobile channel.

The implementation of the mobility plan started in 2010, and has involved numerous partners.

This project revolves around three main pillars, which are the development of the city’s own mobile applications, mainly through the mGovernment project, the “acquisition” of third party mobile applications, and the development of the open data project, as part of the apps4bcn initiative.

1. The mGovernment project, which started in 2010, was developed based on the Mobile Strategic Plan since it defined all services of the city council which could be delivered through mobile. This plan involved the training of employees in mobile technologies in order to acquire the relevant knowledge of the new channel specifications, the collaboration with different areas to develop a central strategic plan for the following years, an analysis of the internal situation to propose and prioritize new future mobile services and the evaluation and development of a roadmap to implement quick win services. The apps developed in this step were made, commissioned and fully controlled by the government in order to deliver high quality outputs.
2. The second pillar, started in 2011, relied on the involvement of all players in the market: industry, companies, entrepreneurs and independent developers, and took the form of contests, workshops, trainings and the creation of a community, so as to contact and acquire the mobile apps of third parties. All the outputs where gathered in a marketplace called Apps4bcn, which encourages the creation of apps for the city by facilitating their promotion.
3. The Open Data project consists on making public data available to everyone in a digital, standardized and open format, following a clear structure. Moreover, easing access to all this information catalyzed stakeholder interest, promoted reuse, and empowered the industry, companies, entrepreneurs and independent developers to create new apps, also for the Apps4bcn platform.

This initiative has the following main goals:

• Increase transparency by making public data available to all the players in society: citizens, companies and institutions, so as they can exploit them and create new services and develop new applications.
• Assess which are the needs of the society through the use public data.
• Strengthen the open data initiative and promote the reusability of this data.
• Promote the local economy through this initiative.

Another project which started in 2012 and which will be further developed in 2014 is Barcelona Contactless. There are five types of stakeholders involved in the implementation of “Barcelona a la butxaca” project:

1. Citizens (Open Data Project)
2. Public authorities: Internal collaborators Barcelona city council departments), external collaborators (Generalitat de Catalunya (Regional Catalan Government), Mobile World Capital, Barcelona Activa, Acció, Barcelona municipal services (BSM))
3. Providers (Itinerarium, Multiactiva, Worldline, Telefónica, etc.), and partners such as Dotopen (apps4bcn portal), Aqualogy (ibeach app), Techideas (idBCN app), On the bus Group (On the bus app) etc.
4. Sponsors such as companies supporting the project, and NGOs such as Neighborhood Associations.
5. Universities such as UPC, and technological centres such as Bdigital

Technology solution

The apps are based on most common development environments of the major mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Phone and Windows 8). The Programming environments can be J2EE, J2ME, .NET and HTML5. Furthermore Cross – platform mobile development platforms are used, such as Titanium, PhoneGap, brigthcove, etc.

Technology choice: Proprietary technology, Standards-based technology

Main results, benefits and impacts

This initiative offers a new way for public administrations and citizens to interact. This is the main benefit of the project, as it offers a brand new citizen-centric service. Furthermore, Barcelona in the Pocket has contributed to redefining the administration’s image, particular through the Open Data initiative, improving the delivery of the information regarding cultural and recreational activities fostering citizens’ participation, reorganizing all the administrations’ processes and reducing administrative burden. There is therefore a solid business case for this project, which has enabled to reduce costs for public administrations.

Barcelona in the Pocket is a project that has also enabled to catalyse the development of the mobile industry, by allowing the active participation of the players in this sector through contests and workshops. Involving and fostering the mobile industry has had a direct and considerable impact on the economy, by creating jobs and boosting the economy. Indeed, his project has catalysed the creation of apps by third parties, as there are already more than 300 apps in Apps4bcn, including 81 which were developed specifically for Barcelona, and 40 which were developed under mGovernment initiative. Moreover, the project also helps to promote Barcelona internationally, by attracting both companies and talented professionals.

The project thus improves citizens’ quality of life by offering them an easier and two-way interaction with all services of the city and the city council, removing boundaries between them and the public administration. Barcelona in the Pocket has been a success, having already 900.000 accumulated downloads.

A good example of the success of the products developed is Barcelona Contactless, a project that has made Barcelona become one of the pioneers of this technology in Europe. The objective of this project is to foster the brand Barcelona Contactless through its presence in congresses, lectures and opinion articles, and to promote the adoption of NFC technology in the city, trying to attract the industry and its specialization, seeing Barcelona as a lab of contactless initiatives, and encouraging local talent and synergies.

This initiative relies on three pillars:

1. Infrastructure: BC is in charge of promoting the deployment of NFC smartphones, dataphones, credit cards and ATM with contactless technology, and other devices.  And it has also been working on the implementation of contactless payment infrastructures in taxis, markets and museum, which is already a reality.
2. Applications: this initiative is in charge of promoting apps and NFC solutions that provide high value services for the city: real time information, contextual, cross information, additional advantages, etc.
3. Service: inside the scope of this project there is the promotion of the usage of NFC technology in big events, in the municipal services portfolio (museums, facilities, etc.) and in companies and organisms of the city.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Track record of sharing

Barcelona City Council is eager to offer the use of some initiatives as the Mobile Digital Identity service or the apps4bcn model to other public authorities and businesses that may wish to use it. The Barcelona City Council has shared these initiatives with the following cities around the world:

• Buenos Aires
• Orlando
• Toronto
• Moscow
• Alberta
• Marseille
• Hong Kong

Lessons learnt

1. This project has made Barcelona aware of the need for a cultural change in the City in order to improve the adoption rate of these new services, because the appearance of new technologies leads to new services and the improvement of the already existing ones.
2. This initiative has proved that mobile is the preferred technology of citizens. In Spain, there is an incredibly high smartphone penetration, with 46% of the population in the ages between 18 and 34 using smartphones as their main digital tool (Source: http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/article/1217158/mobile-first-screen-half-18-34s). When planning activities involving a cultural dimension, it is highly important to think particularly about elderly people since they are the ones that are less likely to adopt the technology.
3. Finally, this initiative has also proved that following a public-private-partnership model can be very beneficial for all parties, boosting the local industry, attracting new talent and entrepreneurs. And that the needs of the citizens are accurately captured by involving a large number of apps providers.

Scope: Local (city or municipality)