How Trieste Trasporti cut €340k in annual operating costs with a smart digital platform.

Trieste Trasporti, cooperating with Mia-Platform, has embarked on a journey of innovation and digitalization to overcome legacy processes and replace obsolete tools, such as paper-based ones. The primary goal was to create a digital ecosystem capable of standardizing operational flows and streamlining communication between various stakeholders.

Today, Trieste Trasporti effectively manages its own intelligent digital platform, “CommuniTTy,” which delivers tangible benefits from both a technical and business perspective, especially in terms of costs and labor savings.

Industry: Mobility & Transportation

The Mission of Trieste Trasporti: To Contribute to the Development and Growth of the Region.

Public transportation enriches communities and improves the quality of life, facilitating access to education, healthcare, employment and leisure. Trieste Trasporti firmly believes that efficient transportation and regional attractiveness are closely linked, helping to reduce social disparities, support employment, strengthen the real estate market, and protect individual freedoms.

The five key words that define the mission of Trieste Trasporti and its community are: simplicity, safety, reliability, innovation, and sustainability.

Context and Challenges

Until 2023, Trieste Trasporti’s operational management was based on traditional and well-tested processes, but the use of paper-based media naturally limited the agility of the service. Every day, 550 drivers and ground staff coordinated activities through a physical flow of documents, requiring significant and constant organizational effort.

At the heart of this system was the Foglio di Via: a document filled out by hand by drivers, physically validated, and delivered to the offices via an internal postal service, making the data available to the administration the following day. This was complemented by the Timetables (laminated and distributed daily), the Foglio Giornale (prepared by the Operations Department by collecting radio communications), and Fault or Incident Reports. Operational management required careful transcription and rationalization by the back office, which combined information from different channels (radio, paper, telephone) to obtain the full picture of the service.

Communication between drivers and the operations and maintenance departments was often inaccurate, leading to misunderstandings and delays.

Major pain points included:

Data latency: The standard paper processing times meant operational data was only available 24-48 hours later.
Operational inefficiency: Many hours were wasted on manual data entry to digitize and cross-reference documents.
Inaccurate communication: The lack of consistent information flows between the parties unnecessarily complicated communication.
Overall experience: The fragmentation of communications during handovers made it more difficult to quickly reconstruct events or justify disruptions to regulatory authorities.

The Goal: To Digitize All Processes

Trieste Trasporti has therefore decided to start a gradual evolution aimed at digitizing all information flows that previously required the use of paper. Specifically:

Validation of started vehicle shifts: The start of the shift and the time of departure from the depot are recorded and digitally certified immediately, validating the start of the service.
Scheduled service information: The driver sees the information the evening before the shift on an app with a tailored interface.
Ordinary service performance: Drivers constantly update service performance data, and this data is read and/or modified by the operations department.
Fault reporting for maintenance: Drivers report faults via smartphone, keeping the maintenance department constantly updated.
Accident reporting: The driver reports the accident via the app, and then the inspector provides his or her version via tablet/smartphone. It is then sent to the Operations Department for cataloging and validation.
General reports (including disciplinary reports): Any abnormal events occurring on the line (traffic, disciplinary, or otherwise) are compiled on-site on a tablet and sent to the operator for cataloging and initiation of the relevant procedures.
Reports of damage already present at the time of acceptance: During the preliminary inspection, the driver can document any anomalies or pre-existing damage (for example, by attaching precise photographs) to protect their liability, replacing the old generic text notes.
Vehicle change reports: If necessary, the driver can record the new bus registration number in real time via the app, without interrupting shift tracking.
Management of unplanned shifts: The digital system allows for seamless insertion of additional trips or services that go beyond the initial schedule.

The digitalization of information flows necessarily requires a digital ecosystem with several specific touchpoints for various stakeholders on smartphones, tablets or desktops, depending on their specific needs:

Driver Interface: To independently receive and report key information on shifts, lanes, schedules, technical reports, and service notes.
Controller Interface: To read technical and other reports or service notes in real time, complete information, and compile reports.
Operations Interface: To view service performance based on reports from controllers and drivers, and subsequently verify, classify, and forward the received reports.
Maintenance Interface: To read and evaluate fault reports received from drivers.

The Solution: A Long-Term Strategy Based on a Digital Platform

Faced with the need to modernize, the push for change came directly from the IT leadership, with the CIO as the key figure in guiding the transition. The search wasn’t limited to a simple application vendor; it sought a partner capable of supporting a profound, strategic, and long-term transformation through the reuse of existing assets.

In essence, a partner with innovative ideas and experience in cloud-native technologies to develop a shared ecosystem between drivers, controllers, operations and maintenance, capable of digitizing and integrating previously paper-based and manual information flows.

Why Mia-Platform?

The key message that convinced management was to view Mia-Platform not as a mere technology provider, but as an enabler of processes and new ways of working. The ability to demonstrate how technology could shape the organization, and not just digitize it, set it apart from competitors.

Specifically, Trieste Trasporti needed a vendor with expertise in cloud-native technologies capable of supporting large-scale enterprise composability. Mia-Platform’s proven and well-referenced experience in the mobility and transportation sector sealed the start of the collaboration.

CommuniTTy: The Digital Platform of Trieste Trasporti

The answer was the creation of a Digital Platform that allowed the development of “CommuniTTy“, the shared digital ecosystem for drivers and ground staff.

The New Drivers App

It has replaced the Foglio di Via and Timetables. Drivers can now view shifts and service notes on their smartphone and report anomalies (delays and breakdowns) in real time.

The Web Backoffice

A tool that completely replaces the Foglio Giornale. Operators no longer transcribe on paper, but validate digital data coming live from the field, with continuous incoming and outgoing updates.

Interoperability of Data and Processes

Adopting the platform provided full visibility of the data and enabled seamless integration between the parties, unifying Trieste Trasporti’s entire IT stack.

Composability and Reuse

Having an asset-rich platform that fosters composability and reuse was a key factor for Trieste Trasporti in choosing Mia-Platform. This choice was motivated by the possibility of building an efficient application suite for drivers, controllers, operations and maintenance by harnessing numerous previously developed digital assets, with the idea of reusing these resources for all future initiatives.

Adoption and Ongoing Support During Change

Mia-Platform walked Trieste Trasporti through a comprehensive process transformation, adopting an Agile approach that was the key to success. This method allowed the project to be divided into clear and dynamic phases.

From the precise definition of the project scope and the definition of requirements, to the time to deliver the solutions. Through the creation of mockups and wireframes, functional requirements were collaboratively defined, developed and released into production sprint after sprint, thus ensuring continuous and targeted innovation.

Even the introduction of the Drivers App itself, given the significant scope of the change, was managed gradually. The transition was not imposed, but accompanied. A comprehensive change management plan included the delivery of 42 training courses for 550 drivers, held from May to November 2025. During this period, drivers received a user manual to help them learn on their own and also had direct access to dedicated support via a helpdesk for two hours a week. So they could communicate via email or internal phone, to help them use and adapt to the new processes. A smartphone was given to all drivers at the end of the course.

The result was surprising: proactive and uncontroversial adoption, undoubtedly aided by a user-friendly application.

The Impact: KPIs of the New Platform

The project’s results went beyond simply eliminating paper. The company recorded an estimated overall savings of approximately €340,000 annually and over 8,600 man-hours saved.

Here’s how these numbers address the initial challenges:

Operational Efficiency: The End of Data Entry

The real “giant” that was eliminated was back-office work. The digitization of processes (cataloging time sheets, timetable management, reports) freed up resources worth approximately €219,000 per year (equal to over 6,800 hours).

Impact: Staff no longer waste time transcribing paper data or sorting physical documents, but can now focus on quality control and managing anomalies.

Reduction of Out-of-Pocket Costs: Tangible Savings

The physical elimination of materials and the optimization of communications generated direct savings of approximately €77,000 per year.

Detail: In addition to the significant reduction in paper, printing and laminating of timetables (approximately €15,000), the company saved €21,000 by rationalizing its SIM cards and €30,000 thanks to preventative broadcast communications that avoided recurring mechanical problems.

Quality of Life for Drivers

For the 550 drivers, the App has meant less bureaucracy. The time saved in collecting and filling out the Foglio di Via is estimated at over 1,300 hours annually (value approximately €43,000).

Human impact: Less stress and improved overall well-being (fewer lines at desks, less manual filling out, and the certainty of having up-to-date shifts and information on your smartphone).

Future Vision: The Journey from Digitalization to Intelligence

Today, Trieste Trasporti has achieved its first major goal: digitalization and structured data integration. But this is just the beginning.

The future vision, shared with the CIO, is to leverage this wealth of data and expand it through artificial intelligence for new scenarios. The goal is to develop AI assistants that use historical context and real-time data to support operational managers in their decision-making process. They will no longer simply “see” what’s happening, but receive suggestions on how to optimize the service on the fly.

Mia-Platform confirms its role as a technological accelerator here, especially thanks to the Catalog, which will act as a real-time X-ray of the organization, allowing these new intelligent modules to be dynamically integrated with existing business systems, without having to rebuild the infrastructure from scratch.

“Thanks to our CommuniTTy platform, provided by Mia-Platform, we have achieved operational excellence through a consistent digitalization process, transforming the way we work while delivering real value and tangible returns for our customers and everyday travelers.”

Luca Debortoli, IT Project Manager at Trieste Trasporti

About Trieste Trasporti

Trieste Trasporti, the operator of local public transport in the Trieste area since 2001, inherits a long tradition in the city whose roots date back to the first horse-drawn line in 1860. Since 2020, it has been one of the four companies of the TPL FVG consortium, operating on a regional scale to manage mobility throughout Friuli Venezia Giulia.

Through one of the most widespread and efficient local public transport services in Italy, it travels over 13 million kilometers per year, carrying 60 million passengers and operating over 5,500 trips per day, for a total of 57.6 kilometers of service per inhabitant.