By Elonora Tu, researcher at ITL and Emilia Romagna pilot site leader

Pilot 1 is located in Monghidoro, a rural town located in Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy). The digital smart locker enables e-commerce and has several services: shipment and collection of parcels (B2C, C2X), collection of correspondence to be signed (e.g. registered mail), postal bills payment, telephone cards and prepaid PostePay cards recharge. Users interface the digital locker through an app installed on their mobile devices (smartphone/tablet).

The installation of such technological service in a rural area is an innovation itself because usually these services are offered in densely populated areas. The challenge therefore lies in the involvement of citizens and especially target users such as elderly people, foreigners, and generally people with lower digital skills. The institute for Transport and Logistics (ITL) and Poste Italiane (PI) cooperated to spread information about the service and to deliver adequate training sessions for these target groups. Training was developed mainly by PI, with the assistance of the Community of Practice, where citizens highlighted the topics and aspects they would like to cover in the training. Training sessions, organised in one-to-one, took place between March 2022 and June 2022 in the City Hall, where the locker is located, and it was based on the recommendation to “Organize training for users about the use of the service and possible risks, with the involvement of local stakeholders”.