Barcelona already has a public taxi app and we have a lot of questions

For after the summer of 2022. This is the date that the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) placed a limitation on the launch of Picmi. This is a public application, introduced a few days ago, for ordering a taxi that wants to compete with the private versions of mobility that have infiltrated the mobility ecosystem. Uber, Cabify, Bolt or FreeNow now have a competitor in public court. Or at least partially because the AMB version of Mobilitat has limitations.

According to its creators, the application complements street taxi services with a show of hands. The system is still under development and will be integrated into the public mobile application AMB Mobilitat as an additional widget.

An app that has 175,000 daily active users according to data from the Capital Region and will focused on 10,523 active taxi licenses in the city.. Because the success of Picmi is guaranteed. Born from the public womb of the AMB, its use will be mandatory for all professionals working in the capital. This means that in addition to the 70% of taxi drivers who work without being tied to any mobile and transportation technology platform, those who work with third parties will have to join more or less actively.

Picmi, mandatory use for taxis, though it’s not clear how

“We are going to include mandatory use in the metropolitan taxi regulations,” explains Maria Teresa Carrillo, manager of L’Institut Metropolità del Taxi (IMET). hypertext“it will also have a sanctioning process in case of non-compliance.”

The rules are clear. AMB wants taxi drivers to use the application more or less actively. How much? That’s the question. not installed yet how much will be small consider that the use of Picmi by taxi drivers is insufficient for the needs of transport institutions.

Like any other application, the control will measure its impact as much as possible. “The system is expected to keep log in that are made with every license,” says Ramon Pruenda, CTO of AMB Informació. Picmi will analyze when the taxi driver has the app active and for how long pikmi – free services through the application – performed at the end of the year. “Then the metropolitan institute will see if there is a lack of activity for any reason and if any sanction is required,” he adds.

Lack of activity will be recorded and it is the WBA that will demand an explanation. Although this happened due to zero activity of the taxi driver due to illness, sick leave or simple vacation or simply because of betrayal when it comes to not opening the check-in system. In the latter case, the publication of the sanctions provided for in the regulations for this group is expected. Who will take over the supervision? The WBA itself will take on this mission, which so far seems titanic.

And this lack of activity includes more than just opening the app itself. The WBA wants to actively use it. “All taxi drivers are required to have an application active if they are working, which, based on a number of criteria, provides this service to a particular taxi, and they are required to accept it,” notes Maria Teresa. hypertext.

On the table and awaiting its implementation after the summer of 2022, it remains to be seen how Picmi will fare in its competition with FreeNow, its direct competitor in the taxi industry. They don’t play in the same league a priori. The first is used only to call a taxi and does not accept payments. He also does not plan to do so: “We cannot be judges and participants, as we set tariffs, schedules and holidays, and we do not want to enter a sector that is already covered by the private sector,” Maria Teresa explains. The second has the go-ahead to work with Tariff 3 — the one designed for fixed-price rides and which has given Uber so many headaches in Barcelona — as well as booking and payment management.

However, FreeNow affiliated taxi driver will also need to use Picmi. What to pay attention to first of all? Probably the one that gives more benefits and fewer fines at the end of the month. The development of Picmi is designed to run car services next to the user. With less wiggle room to opt out of them – they don’t work as an offer like they do in other apps – the coexistence of the public and private worlds in the digital taxi environment remains to be seen. In any case, they say, there will be no problems using both at the same time. One will be blocked when the other is in use and vice versa.

€168,400 to fight billionaire empires

In an open tender for the Barcelona metropolitan area, announced on 28 December 2021, an estimated cost of 168,400 euros was offered for almost 2 years of operation. 138,000 for technology creation, which will take a total of 8 months and 2,768 hours of work, and 30,000 for maintenance and improvements over an agreed time.

Process, which had 3 candidates, eventually closed at 131,000 euros. The companies Astibot, Opentrends and Nexus Geogràpics presented themselves as candidates. With the elimination of the first, the issue was resolved between the last two. Catalan technical consultant Nexus Geogràfics was the winner of the tender and was responsible for running the process.

The initiative aims to fill an important gap that has long been tried to fill but is facing a big challenge.

With its own API to create more efficient Cercalia maps and routes, Nexus will be responsible for creating algorithms that distribute services, taxi stops and attribution. Nexus, which has received any communication in a public environment from the administration, is no stranger to these matters. Although it is true that There is no experience of a similar public taxi app in Spain., Nexus has been a traditional partner of the administration. In its history, the expropriation control system in Barcelona or the application that integrates the city’s mobility services and where Picmi will be integrated, among other things. Also the tourist service of the Generalitat, as well as services related to public administration, in which geolocation plays an important role.

And while the initiative, which has no precedent in Spain, aims to fill an important gap it has sought to fill for a long time, Pikmi faces a big challenge: very well funded technology applications. In the investment area alone, FreeNow has 131 million euros in funding and financial backing from Daimler. Bolt, the Estonian version of Uber, is the quintessential European unicorn; almost 2,000,000,000,000 euros to create an application that competes with United States mobility options. And, of course, Cabify. Nearly profitable and with funding of almost 500 million euros. A whole group of technology companies that are active in a highly competitive sector.

Against all odds, very accepted in the sector

The AMB notes that the taxi service has received public services very well. At least in the first case. “We are very happy because it is a 100% public application and it is a pioneer in Spain. There is some joint initiative with the private sector that is already working, but one like this does not exist,” says Tito Alvarez on the occasion of the Pikmi Premiere.

However, they assume that not everything is closed yet with public taxi app. While they believe the service will improve the efficiency of the taxi service, “there are still many issues that need to be addressed,” he adds. It is connected precisely with the sanctions and regulation that will come from the new public taxi application.

This positioning of the taxi sector is for nothing less. Barcelona is still one of the Taxi bastions regarding new mobility models. Since the introduction of Uber in 2015 and the Spanish version of Cabify a few months before, Barcelona taxis have fought back. Discussed since 2016, Picmi is a public response to a position contrary to private versions of mobility, whether it be the VTC model or intermediary taxis. Unlike Madrid, which raised the cost of VTC services, Barcelona and the Generalitat have always been against this business model. In fact, Pikmi enjoyed the support of all political parties.

The Barcelona taxi started national strikes twice. One of them, in fact, Achieved a complete shutdown of Uber and Cabify in Barcelona a few days before the Mobile World Congress 2019 celebrations. Until the premiere of Tariff 3 almost two years later, which affects closed-price services, Uber did not return to Barcelona, ​​although not without some problems and a mass rejection by taxis. .