At the start of the new year in 2011, the tender to design and deliver an E-services Integrated Platform for its citizens was awarded by the City Hall in Tarnów, Poland. The inhabitants of Tarnów will also benefit from the use of City Card features, based on the original system created by Bull Poland – SmartCity™.
The solution covered by the tender consists of two main elements:
The City Card management system; the latest implementation of Bull Poland’s original solution already being used in Rybnik and Białystok under the Smart City™ brand. Thanks to the modern and modular architecture – based on SOA technologies and built using a complete three-layer architecture – it is easy to adapt and change the system to meet the needs of specific customers.
The City Card itself – the key component of the system – is a hybrid electronic chip card, which communicates with the outside world through both contact and contactless interfaces. The card will enable the system to run a range of urban applications, most notably public transport ticketing and electronic signatures issued by the Tarnów City authorities. A barcode printed on the card will enable holders to use it in the existing healthcare system, which includes clinics, doctors and pharmacies. Other applications will be agreed in the later phases of the project.
The Public Service Platform system, delivered in collaboration with 2CONN, will include not only the portal, which allows secure access to many public services, but also Virtual Consultant – a hi-tech application enabling easy user access to the services offered via the portal. Virtual Consultant will respond to questions asked in Polish, guiding citizens that visit the portal about the right way to resolve their queries.
A pre-analysis stage is due to be completed by the end of January 2011. The remaining schedule for the project has been divided into six stages of around 90 days, so the planned date for completing all the work involved is around 18 months from now.
