After a successful review meeting at the European Commission in Brussels the EU project CIDRE has started the second half of its 18 month lasting project period within the eTEN programme “Deploying Trans-European e-Services for All” with an increased focus on the European authorities.

14 April, 2008. CIDRE is based on the Berlin project “Mobile Citizen Services” (MoBüD), which aimed at bringing the services of the public authorities closer to the citizens by using mobile equipment and wireless networks.
Based on analyses of the country-specific legal and organizational conditions, CIDRE has already carried out field trials in the Swedish regions Örnsköldsvik and Ragunda, in the Estonian cities Tartu and Rakvere and in the Dutch region Aa en Hunze.

The first field trial evaluations focused mainly on the mobile citizen services' usability and ease of use. It turned out that mobile services gained a high degree of acceptance by citizens and civil servants and that especially information and support services are appropriate for being offered by means of mobile equipment. Also the press in the test regions appreciated the attempt of bringing services of the authorities closer to the citizens. The Dutch municipality of Aa en Hunze could act as a precursor for the realization of a wireless transmission within the Dutch administration. In this context a security concept for the mobile citizen services in Aa en Hunze will be developed as a prerequisite.

The next steps will cover the continuation of the existing field trials and the validation of further European test regions. The focus will be on the analysis of the different public administrations and on the communication with them in order to get essential data for the CIDRE business model and deployment plan. In addition, the development of a security handbook with guidelines and checklists for local authorities will start.

The first field trials of the EU-Project CIDRE “Citizen-Friendly Trans-European mGovernment Services” have started.

Berlin, 24 January, 2008. CIDRE aims at the market validation of “Mobile Citizen Services” in different regions in Sweden, Estonia and the Netherlands. Thereby it is evaluated which of the existing citizen services could be provided mobile in these countries.

The first field trials in the Estonian regions have been carried out in the supermarket Eden in Tartu and in a Social House as well as in a supermarket in Rakvere. In this connection TimeKontor visited the information counter of the city government of Tartu in the supermarket Eden and took the opportunity to meet the head of development of IT services of city government of Tartu, Kalev Pullonen. He informed us about the numerous existing online citizen services in Tartu and demonstrated how Estonians can easily carry out administrative matters online with their ID cards.
With the help of the field trials the Estonian regions especially want to bring the existing online services of the city governments closer to the elderly. At the moment services are used mainly by citizens under the age of 35.

The EU project „Citizen-Friendly Trans-European mGovernment Services“ (CIDRE) has started. CIDRE is focused on the market validation of „Mobile Citizen Services“ in different regions in Sweden, Estonia and the Netherlands. The project is being realised by a consortium consisting of the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications Heinrich-Hertz-Institut (Germany), TimeKontor AG (Germany), Senate of the Interior of Berlin (Germany), Mid Sweden University (Sweden), Apprise (Estonia) and Gemeente Aa en Hunze (Netherlands).

10 October, 2007. CIDRE is based on the Berlin project "Mobile Citizen Services" (MoBüD), which was initiated and primary accomplished by Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, the Senate of the Interior of Berlin and other partners. The objective of MoBüD was to bring the services of the public authority closer to the citizen by using mobile equipment and wireless networks. The services of the so-called “Mobile Citizen Offices” are derivated from the services of the stationary citizen office. Civil servants provide them at locations like neighbourhood centres, libraries, hospitals or shopping malls equipped with a mobile terminal system. At these locations the civil servant offers completely the same services (from information and consulting to recording applications, payments as well as hand-out documents). MoBüD was very successful and highly accepted by public authority and citizen in the Berlin test districts. Particular emphasised were the high level of time-saving and the shorter ways for the citizen, the citizen-friendliness, and the informal atmosphere. In the meantime, “Mobile Citizen Services” have been implemented in other German cities like Hamburg, Bremen, and Bergisch Gladbach.

Within CIDRE a market validation with field trials will be accomplished in the Swedish regions Örnsköldsvik and Ragunda, the Estonian regions Tartu and Rakvere as well as in the Dutch region Aa en Hunze to test mobile citizen services. It will be evaluated, whether citizen services and what kind of citizen services can be offered mobile in these countries. Under consideration of country-specific and regional characteristics and differences, questions of IT security and data protection are main topics. Furthermore, a business plan will be developed.

CIDRE was submitted to the European Commission as proposal in the eTEN programme “Deploying Trans-European e-Services for All” within the 6. Framework Programme in 2006 and is now approved for grant for a duration of 18 months.

Project coordinator of CIDRE is the Fraunhofer Insitute for Telecommunications Heinrich-Hertz-Institut (Germany). Further  partners of the consortium are TimeKontor AG (Germany), Senate of the Interior of Berlin (Germany), Mid Sweden University (Sweden), Apprise (Estonia) and Gemeente Aa en Hunze (Netherlands).