Nicolas is a 28-year-old architect living just outside of Saint-Étienne, a large city 50 KM southwest of Lyon, France. Nicolas, who has been a local councilor for his commune for the past 2 years, describes his approach to life as “spending most of my free time trying to improve the living environment of people and imagining living in a more connected world.” Prior to Nicolas establishing Moovit’s service in his city, he complained of the annoyance of using one application for local buses, another for bikes and another site for information on the local trains. Rather than continue to complain about the lack of complete intermodal information, Nicolas decided to take action and began entering all the information for Saint-Étienne.
Nicolas downloaded the app and as there was not yet a service there, he understood that he should map his city’s public transport routes himself. His commitment paid off and since he joined the Community in December last year, he has added more than 530 trips and launched Moovit in his city, which he described as being, “worth doing and being proud to contribute to.” Nicolas explained what kept him motivated and focused in this challenge as he said, “the most important thing for me was that there is always someone from the Moovit Team there to answer my messages.”
Not satisfied with completing only his city, Nicolas requested to map more of the department (county/region) of Loire, in which Saint-Étienne is situated, and he currently is engrossed with mapping the town of Roanne. When he spoke of his expansion plans, Nicolas stated, “I’m actually working to expand the service to cover more of my district.”
It is with great pleasure that we congratulate and commend Nicolas for the powerful actualization of his philosophy of improving his local environment. Due to him, up to half a million people in the metropolitan area can travel smoothly on any mode of public transport they like.
