RTA app will allow access to more than 200 services by May 2015

More than 200 of the Roads and Transport Authority’s (RTA) most popular services will be made available to the public via a smart phone app in just over a year’s time.

At the moment 32 services can be accessed by people using Android, iOS, Windows and BlackBerry devices, with a further 170 due to be released between now and May 2015, said Ahmed Hashem Bahrozyan, chief executive of the RTA’s licensing agency. “The key to success is not the number of services, but the number of people who end up using them and the ease of use.

“Transforming all the services into smart services involves huge technological and administrative challenges. We will be launching in five waves, looking at having new services launched almost every month until May 2015. We want to give them periodically to get people accustomed, rather than suddenly overwhelm them.”

A targeted awareness plan will go along with the launch of the services, aimed at the people most likely to take advantage of each service.

Mr Bahrozyan said that the RTA will tap into the ingenuity of university students in Dubai to design a number of the services.

“We are hoping to get 50 to 60 students from a number of local and international universities located in Dubai, about 10 to 15 students from each university. We want people from various backgrounds so we can get diverse viewpoints. They will take part in brainstorming sessions with us, the ideas they come up with will be implemented in the applications, though some may need more time to develop and hence will be added later down the line.”

He added that due to time constraints the students will not be able to give input on all the 170 services, but will cover some of the main services.

“Another very important task which they will aid us with will be testing the services. We will be testing on 17 types of smart phones, which are selected from the most popular brands used by 80 to 90 per cent of Dubai residents,” said Bahrozyan.

Nine new services recently went live on the app and are now available to the public.

“We have nine new services covering different customer categories, including the Practice Theory Test in Arabic, English and Urdu, the Al-Hares Service which allows transparency in tenders and contracts, School NOC Services Inquiry which allows schools, kindergartens and nurseries to track their requested NOCs, Water Taxi Services to book a water taxi, and NOL Basic Transaction History which lists the transactions made on your NOL cards in the last two months,” said Abdulla Al Bastaki, director of information technology at the RTA.

“Additionally, we offer Application for Elderly Parking Permit, Application for Renewal, Lost, or Damaged Elderly Parking Permit, and Application for Renewal, Lost, or Damaged Permit for the special needs,” he added.

The RTA’s app works on all smart phones, said Mr Bastaki. “We don’t want to dictate to people which phone to use.

“We also don’t want to forget about people who don’t have smart phones. They are about 50 per cent of the users out there. So we will do what we can to make as many services available through SMS and voice.”

Mr Bahrozyan added that by May next year almost all of the RTA’s services will be available through smart applications. However, a handful will not be transferred due to low demand. “There are some services that see less that 100 transactions per year, these are not feasible to be transformed into smart services.”

The Smart Dubai initiative aims to transform Dubai into the world’s smartest city in the upcoming three years by rolling out 100 initiatives and 1000 smart services to improve people’s quality of life in the city.

malkhan@thenational.ae