Citizen Card

The citizen card offers people the possibility to access public services where and when they want.

European cities are working to make life easier for their residents and Europeans more broadly. Finished the dozen different cards and procedures to access city services, one card – and/or app – will give people simple direct and personalised access to many different services within their own city – from using public transport to visiting a zoo, the local library or accessing social benefits. It offers people the possibility to access public services where and when they want.

 

Not only, the final objective is to develop a European citizen card so that Europeans using a citizen card in their own city will be able to use the same one in any other European city to access the same services. Imagine being a citizen of Gijon and using your local Citizen Card in Rotterdam to visit the Euromast, to use public transport in Pau or to admire the National Sculpture Museum in Valladolid.

 

It might sound like a dream, but with combined efforts and a clear vision, it is possible to offer current and future generations a hassle-free, safe, secure and convenient solution to roam between European cities with only a smart card or app in the palm of your hand.

 

The Eurocities Knowledge Society Forum has initiated this Citizen Card project with the goal of creating a ‘white label’ Citizen Card for European cities so that citizens can access services and products in each European city using the same Citizen Card.

Like

The solution explained

How far are cities into realising this dream?

Eight cities at different levels of development of a citizen card have gotten together and exchanged experiences, skills, successes, and failures. The result of this Citizen Card working group is a report collecting a number of basic building blocks, processes and methodologies to introduce a Citizen Card in a city. It is a first step in developing a white label Citizen Card.

 

Is your city interested in jumping on the Citizen Card train? You can read through the report of the working group, a useful guide through the main principles and steps a city has to take into consideration when thinking of introducing a Citizen Card. What can you find in the report:

  • A Citizen Card process overview to support cities in their Citizen Card journey.
  • How to identify your city’s specific challenges and needs. Find out how to pinpoint Citizen Card processes and articulate the bottlenecks that you seek to improve, which will set the stage for selecting appropriate Citizen Card interventions.
  • How to rethink the way tasks are performed and reflect on interventions to address the identified bottlenecks. Suggestions on which interventions match the perspective you want to follow.
  • How to plan the implementation of prioritised interventions within a Citizen Card ecosystem, recognising the iterative nature of the implementation process. What are the critical components? What other considerations should you make?
  • A clearly established enterprise architecture describing how different processes, data, systems and technologies function together is crucial for guiding interoperability to support data exchange between public services. An enterprise architecture blueprint lays the foundation for scaling up and sustaining Citizen Card applications that are standardised and interoperable and that will facilitate access to information resulting in better decision-making and improved outcomes across multiple areas. The report provides a view of the necessary building blocks and a rational method of understanding, defining and manageably implementing interventions. It also introduces a generic high-level architecture for a white label Citizen Card solution and lists considerations for the architecture.
  • You will need to demonstrate the added value of the Citizen Card implementation and, where possible, the contribution to improved public services outcomes. Planning to deploy a Citizen Card intervention includes determining what to monitor and identifying what to evaluate to ensure that the intervention is working as planned and has the effects that you expected. The report goes through monitoring and effective data use practices.

Participate?

Join in the adventure

The aim is to further develop the white label Citizen Card together with interested cities and the Living-in.EU initiative and to create interoperable technological underpinnings in the form of Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs). Part of shaping the way forward is creating a shared strategy to raise funding to provide European citizens across participating cities with a cross-border Citizen Card solution.

More solutions

The beating heart of the urban digital transformation

26 members
10 countries
26 cities
European value
I can, I enable
Impact
100.000 citizens

Cities and communities are in a unique position as they can be both providers and consumers of data and services.

1 member
1 country
1 city
European value
I can, I enable, I learn, I matter, I participate, I trust
Impact

Ecolyo is a digital service that helps citizens to easily access and control their energy (electricity and gas) and water consumptio

1 member
1 country
1 city
European value
I can, I enable, I participate, I trust
Impact
4.400 citizens

Commitments

contribute on a voluntary basis to a joint investment plan to adopt and implement common existing digital solutions on a large scale in the EU;
optimise synergies between EU, national, regional and local funds;
strengthen investment in local digital transformation from EU funds and programmes, to ensure an inclusive and sustainable Europe;
use common public procurement practices to jointly define specifications and reduce the cost of investing in successful digital platforms and related technologies.

The technical group of living-in.eu works together to develop a common list of standards and technical specifications to achieve interoperability of data, systems, and platforms among cities and communities and suppliers around the world to enable solutions such open urban platforms and digital twins.

Remove obstacles to the digitization of already existing public intersectoral and cross-border services in the Union

Enable brand new, original public intersectoral and cross-border services, which respond to new needs

Valorise the best practices, facilitating their adoption in another EU countries with ease and incentives

Empowering public authorities to innovate via education and capacity building, is crucial in the concept of Living-in.EU. We equip public officers with the skills and methodologies necessary to thrive in an increasingly digital world.

This group helps develop and implement a framework, built on existing methodologies, to measure and monitor the benefits for citizens, public authorities, businesses and other stakeholders at local level.

The Smart Communities Network is a EU wide community of organisations representing cities and municipalities, which can support local communities in their early stages of digital transformation.

The purpose of the Smart Communities Network is to facilitate collaboration among organisations, associations, and initiatives throughout the EU, with a shared goal of enhancing digital capabilities within local public authorities.

Promoted by