e-Trikala

e-Trikala, Trikala — Greece

Since 2004, the e-trikala office, in coop­er­a­tion with and in the line of the oper­a­tional pro­gram “The Infor­ma­tion Soci­ety” is act­ing in the fields of new broad­band tech­nolo­gies, suc­cess­fully imple­ment­ing munic­i­pal projects. On the 8th of April, 2008, hav­ing the required expe­ri­ence, it was trans­formed into e-Trikala S.A., an emerg­ing com­pany, formed within the Munic­i­pal­ity of Trikala. The Munic­i­pal­ity is the basic stake­holder own­ing 99% while the rest 1% is owned by the local Cham­bers of Commerce.

By cre­at­ing infra­struc­ture and by pro­vid­ing ser­vices, e-Trikala con­tin­u­ously aims to the devel­op­ment of Infor­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­ogy (ICT) based appli­ca­tions, ori­ented to the improve­ment of all cit­i­zens’ every­day life, in a medium sized city, sim­pli­fy­ing pub­lic trans­ac­tions, reduc­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion costs and deliv­er­ing new ser­vices related to the local way of life. More­over, these ICT appli­ca­tions offer new ways and meth­ods that enable cit­i­zens par­tic­i­pate on policy-making, while in par­al­lel estab­lish local Gov­ern­ment and Pub­lic Author­i­ties as guar­an­tors of local society’s every day proper, dig­i­tal and dis­tanced operation.

e-Trikala S.A. oper­ates upon a fully inte­grated basis while, as the First Dig­i­tal City in Greece (pro­claimed in 2004 by the Min­is­ter of Eco­nom­ics, Mr. Folias), it estab­lishes high tech­no­log­i­cal and broad­band National stan­dards by using and offer­ing its “know-how” to other munic­i­pal­i­ties within Greece.

Dur­ing the last cou­ple of years, e-Trikala is coop­er­at­ing with the Cen­tral Union of Greek Munic­i­pal­i­ties ( ΚΕΔΚΕ ), serv­ing as a con­sult­ing com­pany, using research and devel­op­ment strate­gies, regard­ing the country’s tech­no­log­i­cal as well as eco­nomic growth.

The company’s main areas of exper­tise are:

  • e-transportation
  • e-education
  • e-health
  • e-government & e-democracy
  • geo­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion systems
  • net­works (Wi-Fi, fiber optic, Wi-Max pilot appli­ca­tion & operation)
  • event plan­ning & orga­niz­ing (exhi­bi­tions, con­fer­ences, galas)

e-Trikala projects refer to a num­ber of actions and infra­struc­ture, which aim to the devel­op­ment of Infor­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­ogy (ICT) based appli­ca­tions, ori­ented to the improve­ment of cit­i­zens’ every­day life, in a medium sized city.As we are mov­ing through the 21st cen­tury and as we deploy tech­nol­ogy and its advan­tages, every cit­i­zen has the oppor­tu­nity to enjoy use­ful appli­ca­tions for their every­day trans­ac­tions, their dis­tanced ser­vic­ing as well as local and touris­tic infor­ma­tion ser­vices. The e-trikala team oper­ates under the new broad­band real­ity of things, while it cre­ates and pro­vides dig­i­tal projects, inte­grated broad­band appli­ca­tions and e-services for the citizens.The first Greek Dig­i­tal City is being devel­oped under the respon­si­bil­ity of the Munic­i­pal­ity of Trikala, with fund­ing from the Greek Infor­ma­tion Soci­ety Strategy.

Products/Services
The e-Trikala ini­tia­tive aims to improve every­day life by sim­pli­fy­ing pub­lic trans­ac­tions, reduc­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion costs, deliv­er­ing new elec­tronic ser­vices, and offer­ing new meth­ods to enable cit­i­zens to par­tic­i­pate in policy-making. The Dig­i­tal City model con­sists in four lay­ers:Infra­struc­ture: hard­ware and soft­ware nec­es­sary to make the Dig­i­tal City oper­a­tional (such as broad­band net­works, pub­lic ter­mi­nals, etc.).

Appli­ca­tions: e-government services.

Back-office: all pub­lic author­i­ties and organ­i­sa­tions that pro­duce and deliver infor­ma­tion and elec­tronic pub­lic ser­vices to end-users.

End-users:   cit­i­zens, groups of cit­i­zens, and businesses.

Within this model – which is adapt­able to the local char­ac­ter­is­tics and needs of any given city – the e-Trikala project includes a num­ber of indi­vid­ual ICT projects, which are either being imple­mented or still at the design stage. Projects cur­rently being under­taken under the first phase include the following:

Pro­mo­tion of Broad­band Use: exist­ing cable net­works are being upgraded, and spe­cial events  are being organ­ised to present broadband-based appli­ca­tions tar­geted to spe­cific groups (e.g. lawyers, stu­dents, etc.). In addi­tion, a  35 km fibre-optic Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area Net­work (MAN)  has been installed since 2007, in the city area, link­ing over 50  pub­lic author­i­ties’ build­ings, schools, uni­ver­si­ties as well as Munic­i­pal ser­vices The MAN will be con­nected to the Inter­net and to Syze­fxis, the Greek National Net­work of Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion. The net­work con­sti­tutes  the basic infra­struc­ture host­ing all dig­i­tal pub­lic ser­vices of the e-Trikala project, while also min­imiz­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion costs for pub­lic author­i­ties. A sup­ple­men­tary wire­less broad­band net­work has been designed along the same con­cept, to extend broad­band telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion over the wider region of Trikala pre­fec­ture, link­ing build­ings that host pub­lic authorities.

E-government ser­vices for cit­i­zens: “e-dialogos” is an imple­mented e-democracy project, pro­vid­ing to cit­i­zens the oppor­tu­nity of actively par­tic­i­pat­ing in munic­i­pal decision-making and this project is approved to be expanded to the 11 Munic­i­pal­i­ties of Cen­tral Greece. More­over, 31 oper­a­tional ser­vices are offered to cit­i­zens through the munic­i­pal web­page www.trikalacity.gr. Every cit­i­zen is able to request for any cer­ti­fi­ca­tion or offi­cial doc­u­ment for per­sonal use, by enter­ing the sys­tem and not by vis­it­ing the rel­e­vant pub­lic authority.

Intel­li­gent trans­port: sev­eral sys­tems  have been devel­oped, pro­vid­ing users with use­ful real-time infor­ma­tion regard­ing, among other things, arrivals and depar­tures of buses and avail­able park­ing spaces. Ser­vices  are deliv­ered via screens installed at bus sta­tions, a web por­tal, and Radio Data Sys­tems (RDS). This project is also approved to be expanded to the 11 Munic­i­pal­i­ties of Cen­tral Greece.

Tele-Care Cen­tre: staffed with spe­cialised per­son­nel, the cen­tre offers remote sup­port to the elderly, the dis­abled, and peo­ple suf­fer­ing from chronic dis­eases. Users are able to com­mu­ni­cate with the cen­tre from their homes via video­phone equip­ment, but also from any­where via portable devices. Dur­ing the first phase of oper­a­tion, the Tele-Care cen­tre sup­ported at about 200 cit­i­zens, but will grad­u­ally expand to cover all cit­i­zens that need care.

Geo­graph­i­cal Infor­ma­tion Sys­tem (G.I.S.) : the city’s dig­i­tal guide that is offered to cit­i­zens through the use of the inter­net (spe­cific por­tal) or through their mobile phones. The Munic­i­pal­ity of Trikala has dig­i­tized the street maps of the rel­e­vant areas and has recorded impor­tant urban plan­ning data in every city block.

In addi­tion, a num­ber of projects are cur­rently in the design phase, includ­ing ICT train­ing courses for civil ser­vants, an elec­tronic mar­ket­place for local busi­nesses, e-training for the unem­ployed, a com­mon ERP sys­tem for pub­lic agen­cies, a tele-work ini­tia­tive, and fund­ing to assist SMEs with the imple­men­ta­tion of ICT.

The ulti­mate goal of the Dig­i­tal City of Trikala is to cre­ate an inte­grated elec­tronic envi­ron­ment for cit­i­zens and busi­nesses, pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to issues such as user-friendliness, secu­rity, and pri­vacy. Beyond the instal­la­tion of ICT infra­struc­tures and deliv­ery of e-services, the dig­i­tal city ini­tia­tive seeks to fos­ter the active par­tic­i­pa­tion of cit­i­zens, busi­nesses and pub­lic author­i­ties in the tran­si­tion to the Infor­ma­tion Society.

Con­tact infor­ma­tion
Con­tact per­son: Odis­seas Rap­tis — Project Man­ager
Web­site: http://www.e-trikala.gr