21/10/2010
Fabrice Girard: Departmental head of Mobility and Regional passenger transport, Mobility and Transport Office at the Regional Council of Brittany
BREIZHGO will be launched soon, is multimodal information a priority for the Brittany region?
It is fundamental today, and will be even more so in future, that public transport should develop with a firmly multimodal aim. In collaboration with its partners, the Brittany region is therefore developing a number of initiatives which aim to improve all stages of a journey, to make changing from one network to another as easy as possible: improvement in multimodal hubs, the introduction of a travel card which will be interoperable with the multi-networks smart card Korrigo, improvement in the coordination of transport services…
In that context, multimodal information is a major priority in the Region. Public transport users are increasingly demanding clear, multimodal information in order to plan their journey. We think that information is a major lever in the development of public transport, and in this respect, BREIZHGO will be an essential tool which will benefit everyone.
What difficulties have you encountered since its implementation?
There have been technical problems, because making different databases compatible is never an easy task. The Breton project also required the development of specific functionalities, in particular perfecting an algorithm which would allow you to find out information about transport offers more than 6 months in advance, even if the timetable information has not yet been finalised. The aim was to be able to provide information to users far in advance of their journey, typically for passengers who plan their holidays many months in advance.
However, one of the potential problems for the BREIZHGO project was linked to the partnership element, which involved almost 20 organisations. The Brittany region was able to avoid this stumbling block by taking the time to consult thoroughly with the partners, so that their expectations and requirements could all be taken into account by the BREIZHGO project. By drawing on past experiences, and relying on a regular task force (called GART BREIZH) which liaised with the Breton transport authorities, we were able to create a working environment which was favourable to joint decision-making.
You are taking part in the START project, how have contributions from other partners and European funding been able to assist you?
The sharing of experience enabled by the START project has enriched our thinking. It is very interesting to compare the practices of the different partners, and to pre-empt the problems already encountered by others. The non-French partners have mentioned the specific needs and difficulties in using multimodal information systems in areas that they are not familiar with. We have tried to include this factor in our BREIZHGO project, which is also aimed at non-Breton passengers.
In the current state of public finances, the contribution made by Europe to the BREIZHGO project has allowed us to turn this project into a reality. We fully appreciate that today, at a time when some partners are facing significant financial difficulties.
Interoperability is a major issue today, what contacts have you already made with other regions?
Interoperability is indeed a significant issue, which is fully addressed by the START project. We have already started to work with our partners in the Lower and Upper Normandy regions, and our BREIZHGO project was technically developed to allow you to log in to other MIS, using web services. A quick implementation with the Lower Normandy region is being prioritised, which will allow us to test on a full scale the first trial version. We hope to start that experiment before mid-2011.