App aims improve students’ urban mobility in Cascais

The Portuguese city of Cascais has just launched the CHILDFY project. The initiative is funded by the EIT Urban Mobility, as part of the RAPTOR programme. It will provide students and young children with new mobility solutions.

The CHILDFY project aims to improve the urban mobility system. In particular, this initiative has the goal to make students’ trips to and from school safer, more comfortable and sustainable. In order to reach this objective, the project focuses on encouraging intermodality through the implementation of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS). The CHILDFY platform allows parents and students to access several transport modes all in one place, creating a community of families and schools aiming to save time and reduce car use.

As with other MaaS applications, CHILDFY combines information about the available transport modes (such as public transport, shared mobility or on-demand services) and in-advance booking. Users can open the app, choose their preferred option, and receive real-time information and estimated time of arrival relating to the available transport services.

For school transport, parents are encouraged to use the app to decrease their private use of the car to take their children to school every day, and instead to switch to car-sharing or car-pooling with other parents whose children go to the same school as theirs. Hence, parents can combine or offer a ride with other parents for their children.

Children’s and students’ safety is guaranteed as the app requires children to be enrolled in one of the schools that participates in the project. The respective school director will then verify the information and validate it on the app.

Through this project, the city of Cascais is contributing to Portugal’s transition towards a more accessible, affordable and efficient model of urban mobility, enabling students and young children to move around the city more freely and easily.

CHILDFY was first piloted at Fernando José dos Santos School and Salesianos de Manique. The Pedagogical Director of the Salesianos de Manique, Bernardo Correia, stated that this project helped reduce traffic jams at the school entrances and exits, while fostering new mobility solutions proposed by the City of Cascais, such as the CHILDFY app.

For additional information about CHILDFY, see the website: https://movilidadparafamilias.com/

Original article published by EITUrbanMobility.eu on 2 February 2023.