The MobiLille association, created to improve public transport services in the Lille metropolis, fights for the rights of users, often “taken hostage by the frequent problems on line 1”. Beyond this fight, it launched its own application on January 13, 2025, after feedback on that of Ilevia, deemed “impractical”.
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Transport timetables, availability of bicycles in V’Lille stations, location of nearby departure points, customizable alerts, route calculation, collaborative incident reporting… The promise is rich in terms of the performance of the application. MobiLille transport, launched on January 13, 2025 in the Lille metropolis.
“We realized that the Ilévia application was not so successfulsays Mattéo Ferrux, president of the association. In any case, this is the feedback we have received from many users. Not reliable, not ergonomic, not practical… For example when it comes to V’Lille, you have to go to a hidden menu.“
“I was never convinced by the Ilévia applicationconfirms Nicolas Goguillon who takes the tram and line 1 every day. It’s suitable for researching a route you don’t usually do, but on a daily basis, it’s not intuitive or easy to use. What we want is to know what works and what doesn’t..”
So, with his vice-president Amaury Crocquefer, Mattéo Ferrux decided to create his own application. “MobiLille is designed by users for users and that is important. We started developing it in July 2024. Since then, around a hundred beta testers have used it on a daily basis and sent us their comments..”
Nicolas is one of them. “I find it interesting, because it is very simple. When you open it, you find a card and a button to report an incident. Community works well!“The young man even deleted the Ilévia application from his phone, in favor of MobiLille, believing that the latter’s strong point is interaction with users. In the event of a problem reported and after verification, an alert is triggered at users of the software.
A source of pride for Mattéo: “Our objective was not to compete with Ilévia. But if users find themselves in the app that we designed for them, we have won everything” Another pride, even if the application is built with public data provided by the European Metropolis of Lille and by Keolis, it is 100% in-house and does not use a service provider. “Everything is internalized, everything is controllable, further specifies the president of the association. Even our route planner is entirely based on a very efficient internal MobiLille service.“
In future versions, information on the punctuality of buses at stops will also be provided. In the meantime, the free application will soon be available on the Google Play Store (Android) and has been available since January 13, 2025 for iOS users on the AppleStore. It may take a few more days for it to be referenced but it can already be downloaded here.
Mattéo invites users to share their suggestions or problems encountered, in order to further improve the concept. And Nicolas concludes, certain that the app will be successful: “Given everything that is happening on line 1, it is not a luxury to have information on the problems as quickly as possible.”
