Tehran is the largest city in Iran with a daytime (live, work, learn) population of more than 10 million people. The MyTehran app has been developed to improve service delivery and encourage increased engagement between the large citizenship population and the Municipality.

Prior to the launch of the MyTehran app, accessing most Municipal services required the physical presence of citizens. MyTehran has negated that requirement and by integrating all Municipal online services into one portal, it has also simplified the digital process for citizens, businesses and City employees.

The development of the MyTehran app started in April 2018 with the launch of an online citizen account registration for entering Tehran Low Emission Zones (TLEZ). After that, more than 40 services were added to MyTehran to provide a one-stop-shop for Smart City Services.

The project is unique in its kind in the Middle East, due to the number of users and its systematic access to national and urban services.

To meet the requirements of citizens and businesses, this integrated application includes versatile services minimizing the need for citizens physical presence which is important for reducing pollution as well as the number of people exposed to possible infection from COVID-19. For example, remote payment services are important as people need to use them regularly.

 Some of the payment (Fintech) services on the app are:

• Utility bill
• Municipal fares and car-related payments
• Traffic and Tehran Low Emission Zones (TLEZ) charges
• Urban micro e-Payment and integrated e-Ticket system.
• On-street parking service
• e-Toll payment system
• Citizen's account and e-Wallet

Some social services covered by the app include:

• Citizens' reports & evidence through video, photo and location via 137 hotline service
• Publishing announcements and alarms relevant to COVID-19
• Emergency call to report disease
• Phone advice on COVID-19

Increasing citizen engagement is our main strategic development goal. The following services are currently being developed:

• Online Housing and Construction Services
• Urban Location-Based Services
• BarBarg (app for issuing freight documents online)
• Ride-hailing services
• Direct debit
• Virtual tour
• Bus & taxi fare mobile payment via QR code scan

Location-based services (LBS) incorporate GIS data layers that are driven from dedicated and precise government data gathering and lead to a unique business advantage for local service providers. “Tehran Interactive Map & Routing System (RAYA)” and “Virtual Tehran Tour” are developed under this umbrella.

Moreover, providing APIs (application programming interfaces) to the private sector enables companies to bundle MyTehran services into their services portfolio. This has been made operational through the "Smart City Services Delivery Platform (SDP)".

Finally, employing Business Intelligence (BI) through the "Citizenship Club" is helping to increase user loyalty of the app.

MyTehran has taken advantage of new technologies and ICTs to make the app as friendly and useful as possible.

Tehran Municipality is the lead agency for the project and provides the main source of funding.

The integration of City services and municipal payment services into a single platform has increased governance efficiency and citizens’ satisfaction. For example, the app includes a map of Tehran with more than 250 data layers that enable personalized multi-modal routing, this has led to reducing traffic congestion as well as reducing carbon emissions. These results benefit citizen’s health and wellbeing.

After two years of MyTehran launch, below are the key statistics:

• 3 million registered users
• 2.8 million cars
• 450K transactions per day
• 68% growth of citizens' satisfaction for the app in the last year
• Integration of more than 40 services inside and outside Tehran Municipality

Citizens' take-up of these online services is a good measure of their digital readiness. This paves the way for further smart technology developments and demonstrates the socio-economic potential of such services.

Increasing urbanism sees most cities facing challenges such as traffic jams, air pollution, and an increase in demand for services by citizens. Creating synergies between different local government bodies was the main challenge for providing user-friendly services for citizens. Addressing this challenge led to the integration of silo-based urban services.

Tehran Municipality’s ICT Organization (TMICTO) is responsible for collecting different municipal data. Further, it has the infrastructure for hosting the data and has the employees (under Smart Tehran Centre) to analyse the data for project monitoring and evaluation. One of the most notable challenges remaining is gaining access to the national government data and one of the most important improvements planned are to increase the integration of services (both local and national) into one single platform.
 

The lessons learned from developing and launching the MyTehran app could be used as a valuable benchmark for other cities with similar communication and data infrastructure. According to the operational results, the fields of real-estate, vehicle management, and payments are the most used services. The first two are pure municipal services and the last one is the most used in daily life. Allowing citizens to customize the app’s interface is a popular feature that has encouraged widespread usage of the app. Moreover, the role of the app in providing services for citizens has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

4th Smart Tehran Online Congress: https://smartehran.medium.com/

MyTehranapp webpage: https://my.tehran.ir/
 

If you want to know more on Tehran at the use platform you can find another case study here.