Venice chooses Sustainable Cities Challenge semi-finalists

• Instant System SAS: a mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) provider, empowering over 100 cities and regions worldwide. Their MaaS platform integrates an intermodal trip planner with journey recognition, covering public transport, biking, and shared mobility. The platform provides a gamified mobility profile, nudging behaviour change by simplifying access to Venice’s diverse mobility options
• Ioki: a European tech-company for digital mobility that offers data-based transport planning and innovative platform solutions. It will use a tailored approach to understand the mobility needs of Venice’s population to encourage a shift toward sustainable travel behaviours
• Kooling Technologies: a London-based, deep tech company focusing on addressing urban mobility challenges. Their tool, Every Street, combines insight on individual mobility choices and aims to talk to people’s hearts and understand the individual experience to breakdown urban mobility perceptions that create value for citizens and visitors
• My House Geek Pty - Bike Party is a digital platform for organising group bicycle rides and measuring the usage of a city’s active transport infrastructure. They work with cities and communities to form group bicycle rides around key destinations such as schools, universities, business precincts and public transport infrastructure to forge community connections and increase active transport participation
• Nudgd AB: a startup dedicated to driving sustainable behaviour change through digital nudging solutions. The Smart Nudges platform integrates behavioural science with digital tools to encourage sustainable mobility habits. Through personalised, timely nudges embedded in apps, websites, and digital signage, it motivates individuals to choose low-carbon transport modes
• UrbanTide Limited: helps organisations unlock the value of their data, through their uMove platform which integrates diverse datasets and delivers AI-driven analysis to support scalable, data-driven solutions for sustainable transport and behaviour change.“With these 10 semi-finalists now selected, we are excited to join forces with global innovators to explore sustainable transport solutions for the people of Venice,” said Monica Perez Lobo, Director at Toyota Mobility Foundation Europe.

“We understand that changing established behaviours and daily habits, especially in transportation, can be challenging. However, even small changes made by many can significantly reduce carbon emissions and enhance the liveability of our cities. We hope that the outcome of this Challenge will inspire other cities worldwide to adopt similar practices, helping them overcome their own challenges on the path to a sustainable future.”

The Challenge evaluated entries based on their potential to change citizen behaviour by increasing active mobility, public transport use and usage of shared mobility.

“This Challenge gives innovators the chance to test their ideas in a real-world context, exploring what truly impacts how people engage with transport in cities”

Semi-finalists will each receive a $50,000 implementation grant to help teams refine and localise their solutions to drive the use and adoption of existing low and zero-carbon transport modes in Venice.

“Announcing the 10 semi-finalists for Venice’s Sustainable Cities Challenge is a significant milestone. Sustainable transport solutions are about more than technology – they’re about understanding and meeting the needs of residents who benefit from these systems,” said Kathy Nothstine, director of Cities and Societies at Challenge Works. “This Challenge gives innovators the chance to test their ideas in a real-world context, exploring what truly impacts how people engage with transport in cities.”

Ben Welle, director of integrated transport and innovation at WRI Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities, added: “With the selection of these 10 semi-finalists, it’s exciting to see how innovators from around the world will respond to the Challenge and develop solutions to make Venice a more sustainable city. The resulting innovations will directly benefit the people of Venice, and we hope these solutions can be applied to other cities worldwide, improving urban mobility on a broader scale.”