The Chamber of Commerce of Palamós and Calonge i Sant Antoni Local Council organised an information day entitled “On-demand transport: the Shotl service, your bus closer to you and only a click away” at Calonge Castle this morning. The goal was to raise the profile of this kind of flexible transport services in which the vehicles adapt their route in real time to meet demand. This is a service offered by Moventis that has already been successfully implemented in other municipalities around Catalonia, such as Sant Cugat.
The event discussed the need for this Shotl service in municipalities such as Calonge and Sant Antoni, as well as other towns on the Costa Brava with numerous geographically disperse urbanisations and areas with no conventional public transport services, in order to facilitate mobility for their residents.
The event was attended by Pol Fages, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Palamós; Miquel Martí Pierre, Managing Director of Moventis; Roger Cumeras from Shotl; Pere Aguilar, Head of the Public Transport Department of Sant Cugat del Vallès Local Council, the first municipality where Shotl was launched; David Saldoni, the Director-General of Transport and Mobility of the Regional Government of Catalonia; and Albert Ros, Mobility Councillor for Calonge i Sant Antoni.
The main advantage of the Shotl service lies in that it enables public transport to reach areas with very little demand at present while also representing an economic saving and generating less pollution given that the bus only operates when there is a demand for the service. This avoids bus journeys with no passengers, reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The advantages also include the ease with which users can request a pick-up by the bus – using an app or the telephone – and reduced waiting times.
The second part of the event consisted of a Shotl demonstration on the streets of Calonge and Sant Antoni: how a pick-up is requested, how the service is confirmed, how the driver is told about the shortest route and how the user can see on the app where the bus currently is and their current waiting time.