Pa increasingly digital, for the IO app 38 million downloads: Trentino, Veneto and Friuli at the top

With almost 38 million downloads, four times as many as in March 2021 the app Io is increasingly popular and 86% of Italian municipalities have now landed on the application that allows citizens to interface with local and national public services, directly from their smartphones. Taking a snapshot of the situation in Italian municipalities is the local authority study centre, which emphasises how, thanks to the push towards digitalisation that has been given by the pandemic and the fact that registration to this App has been made a condition for accessing bonuses that have been very popular, such as cashback or the holiday bonus, "AppIO has been the protagonist of a vertiginous growth. Such a capillary diffusion represents an asset for those who, like local authorities, often need to interact with their citizens to - for example - warn them of the imminent Tari (road tax) deadline, notify fines or convey important notices. And Italian administrations seem to have, for the most part, understood the value of this opportunity'.

Currently, as many as 6,854 municipalities out of 7,901 are in fact present on the app, some 600 more than two years ago. The spread of this tool is wide and fairly homogeneous across the country. Only 424 northern municipalities (around 10%), 138 municipalities in the centre (14%) and 485 municipalities in southern Italy (19% of the total) are missing. Holding aloft the banner of digitisation of Italian municipalities are - in equal measure - Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trentino Alto Adige and Veneto, which have the record presence on the AppIO with no less than 99% of local authorities and only 1% of authorities not using this tool.

Emilia Romagna, where only 2% of municipalities are missing from the App, and Valle d'Aosta (3%) are also doing well. At the other extreme are Umbria, where municipalities not yet on the App account for 27% of the total, and Abruzzo and Campania, with 24%. In between: Marche (7% of "missing" municipalities), Basilicata and Piedmont (11%), Tuscany (12%), Molise and Puglia (15%), Liguria, Lombardy and Sardinia (16%), Lazio (17%), Sicily (18%) and Calabria (19%).

Among the regional capital cities, the honourable mention for the most active on this platform goes to the Capital, which has made as many as 68 services available to Roman citizens, ranging from notifications for the issuing of payment notices for Tari, Cosap, Erp fees, school transport, and cemetery services to the sending of notifications and updates on practices such as the procedure for assigning a house number or requests for book vouchers. Bologna and Potenza are also on the podium, with 56 and 55 services respectively. The largest city, the regional capital, least active on this front turns out to be Palermo, which to date has activated only three services, relating to access to the ZTL, fine notifications and Tari notices.