Good news, because OV9292 is bringing the collaboration with Donkey Republic to production, which means that from 1 March you can request Donkey Republic bicycles via the 9292 Locations API, which can be linked to the 9292 Travel Advice API. Donkey Republic now has rental bicycles in the cities of Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Dordrecht and with this expansion, providers can provide even more after-transport options in the travel advice to the traveler.
The collaboration between 9292 and Donkey Republic stems from a project in which both parties are involved to take Mobility as a Service (MaaS) to the next level. This is a system in which you as a traveler pay for the use of integrated transport services, without having to invest in means of transport.
“That's how we got into a conversation about the integration of our services. For us, this is a great opportunity to reach more cyclists. We want as many people as possible to find and consider Donkey Republic in their transportation choice. Our service is particularly interesting in combination with public transport. Especially in the Netherlands, with its great public transport network and great cycling tradition.”
The programming work that was required for the integration of the shared bikes in the 9292 app and the 9292 moves app, including reservation and payment, has been completed. A mountain of work has been done for this at both Donkey Republic and 9292. According to Erdem, the proprietary app is not designed to exchange data with third-party apps. To ensure that the functionalities they offer customers can easily be exported to an external app, they have rebuilt everything in a System Tool Kit (STK). That is a kind of black box from which 9292, but also other affiliated parties, can retrieve our data to link to their own services.
challenge
The challenge for 9292 was to develop the shared bicycle functionalities integrate in the travel advice and then also display them in a clear and user-friendly way. Patrick Kuijpers, developer at 9292, is mainly concerned with the front end and how everything looks to the user.
“What makes this project extra fun for me is that we are working on linking physical objects - bicycle locks - to our app. They are also equipped with Bluetooth technology, which is also new in the 9292 apps. This poses all kinds of challenges, for example in testing. Because you actually have to be at a bicycle location to be able to open a bicycle. But with a loose lock and manipulating my GPS location, it also works behind my computer.”
Planning your cycling routes around your public transport journey has been possible for a while with the 9292 app and the 9292 moves app. And the time has now come that you can immediately reserve a shared bike within the app and pay for its use. Starting with Donkey Republic's share bikes.
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