Semitan boosts the reliability of "Tan", its mobile app for passengers
SQLI takes charge of preventive maintenance (2021-2023)
Semitan operates the public transport network in and around the city of Nantes. To support user mobility and increase autonomous travel, it released the Tan mobile app, developed using React Native. To ever better serve users, Semitan turned to SQLI to boost the app’s reliability and make its services continuously available.
Tan, the travel companion of transport users in and around Nantes
The Tan app, initially designed using Android and iOS by SQLI, has been helping passengers with their daily travel since 2013. When it was launched, in addition to services such as route searches or timetable checking, it featured a brand-new service: mTicket, i.e. e-tickets. This service is still proving a real success: in 2020, 1.2 million mTickets were scanned.In addition to serving users, the mobile app lets Semitan reduce the environmental impact and cut the costs of issuing tickets, and optimize inspectors’ work.
Stabilization and consulting needed
Over the first months after the launch of the latest version of the app in late 2019, some instability was seen as the app ramped up. For instance, some users received error messages or got stuck at the mTicket scanning stage, potentially slowing down inspectors’ work. In parallel, UX upgrades were identified by Semitan’s teams to offer more features from the home page and smooth the browsing experience.Semitan again selected SQLI to stabilize the app and prepare both technical and UX upgrades.
Eric Malherbe, Semitan’s IT Design & Development Manager, says: “After creating the initial version of the Tan mobile app, SQLI is now handling the third-party maintenance of our new mobile app, including both management of key patches and providing our customers with upgrades. We can but be satisfied with the first few months of this new collaboration, as we regularly receive advice and high-quality suggestions to make technical, usability and methodological improvements. ”
SQLI makes the most of the synergies between its Nantes team, which provides local project management, and its Mobility Factory based in Lyon. Since the start of 2021, its experts have been helping Semitan with preventive maintenance, with the aim of predicting necessary technological upgrades, such as React Native, and potentially obsolescent app components. Switching from an opportunity-based approach to industrialized upgrade patches, the teams drew up the roadmap with SQLI, including the regular launch of upcoming versions.
After strengthening the web infrastructure that supplies data to the app via PHP flows, the key issue for Semitan and SQLI’s teams is to find the right balance between new UX elements and the resulting technical constraints, to provide ever more effective services to passengers.