Vilnius has launched a new JUDU mobile app combining public transportation ticket purchases, parking payments and trip planning, with the city planning to phase out its existing m.Ticket and m.Parking apps.
The new app is designed to bring the city’s mobility services together on a single platform, Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas said Tuesday at its launch.
“People naturally want to filter what they keep on their phones so that using apps is convenient, meaningful and sustainable in the long term,” Benkunskas said.
Vilnius has historically used separate apps for public transportation, parking and other mobility services, he said. The new JUDU app is intended to unify those services.
Users can purchase and activate public transportation tickets, plan trips using real-time transit information, pay for parking in local paid parking zones and lots operated by JUDU, and plan bicycle routes.
The bicycle route-planning feature allows users to plan trips using dedicated bike paths as well as shared paths and roads without bike infrastructure. Benkunskas said the feature would be further developed as the city expands and changes its cycling infrastructure.
JUDU CEO Loreta Levulytė-Staškevičienė described the app as one of the most advanced mobility apps in Europe. Development took about two years and cost approximately 100,000 euros, she said.
About 70% of the app was developed using JUDU’s internal resources, while external partners accounted for the remaining 30%, providing evaluation, testing and other services, Levulytė-Staškevičienė said.
The m.Ticket and m.Parking apps are expected to be discontinued by the end of October, when users will be encouraged to switch to the unified JUDU app, she said.
The new app allows users to purchase public transportation tickets without a minimum purchase amount. Drivers can manage parking for multiple vehicles at the same time, receive reminders when parking time is about to expire and get information about parking violations.
Payments can also be made through Google Pay and Apple Pay.
The JUDU app was launched in early July and currently has about 68,000 users. The company expects that figure to reach about 150,000 by the end of October, Levulytė-Staškevičienė said.
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