The problem our project solves

  • Crowded public transport increases the spread of COVID19. Alternative and safe means of transport need to be actively encouraged to allow safe commuting and ensure business continuity.
  • It has been found that the mortality rate of COVID19 is a 15% higher in cities which higher air pollution, specifically NO2 and PM particles produced by diesel-powered cars (BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52351290). 78% of deaths across four countries were in most polluted regions (The Guardian https://bit.ly/2VFEjJz, ). Sustainable, low-emission means of transport should be promoted to reduce air pollution and reach lower mortality rates.
  • Small, local businesses have had to close due to COVID19 and might not be able to overcome this crisis if they can't recover their customers. Incentives from our solution can be used to promote local shopping to increase the revenues of small businesses and ensure their business continuity.

The solution we bring to the table

Experts and governments are encouraging commuters to cycle or walk to work, which means they can avoid crowded public transport and reduce their chance of infection without increasing air pollution by taking other means such as driving. In order to change mobility habits and behaviours, it is necessary to incentivise employees. Our solution does this and also provides mobility data to city planners, which helps to make data-driven decisions. Ciclogreen is an online platform (www.ciclogreen.com) that allows companies and city councils to reward their employees and citizens with incentives for using sustainable means of transport to go to work (e.g. cycling, walking, using an electric scooter and others). Employees register their commuting trips using our tracking app and are motivated thanks to gamification elements (ranking, points, Mobility Challenges and rewards). Employees get points for their sustainable kilometres, that they can redeem for discounts in local shops and other rewards, being able to join Mobility Challenges. Ciclogreen analyses accumulated mobility data to provide accurate calculations of C02 emissions to companies and mobility pattern insights to city councils (Heat Maps e.g. https://www.ciclogreen.com/estudios-de-movilidad), helping them to design better infrastructures and services. We launch international Sustainable Mobility Challenges at a city level (and also including several cities) to promote sustainable commuting, involving companies, city councils and universities:

What we have done during the weekend

1. We have studied a successful case of popup cycle lanes implementation to fight COVID contagions in a European city to take into account current best practices in our proposal. Pop Up bike lanes are increasingly being set up within a few days in the EU, in cities such as in Berlin in response to Covid-19 social distancing measures of 1.5m which were not possible to maintain on the existing cycle paths. Besides the bike lanes, Berlin’s traffic light systems have been adapted on high traffic streets to avoid bike congestion. Such an intelligent traffic light system could even be improved through data analysis by adapting to different times of a day for example. After studying this case, we have found how Ciclogreen app and Heat Maps could effectively support the process by (1) helping the city to identify and prioritize the streets that need to be redesigned based on current cycling mobility patterns and (2) get information about peak cycling traffic hours to adapt traffic lights and avoid crowds of waiting cyclists and fastest routes to work. Since Ciclogreen app can currently show customized surveys to employees, we could also ask users about infrastructure or mobility services problems.

2. We have built a functional prototype! of a Pan-European COVID-safe Commuting Challenge, showing how we could involve companies, universities and local shops and provide a Heat Map to citizens and city planners. The Heat Map included in the website could be useful to show the location of popup cycle lanes and other new or adapted infrastructures to citizens, and also the locations of the small shops involved.

The solution’s impact to the crisis

We believe that our solution will allow employees to commute more safely and get back to work sooner with improved commuting strategies. Based on our previous experience launching international Mobility Challenges we are sure that we could have a significant impact and scale our solution quickly and affordably building on our prior experience and existing partnerships.

  • We launched international Mobility Challenges involving multiple cities and thousands of users in less than 15 days. We know how to launch cost effective communication campaigns to engage citizens and also know how to involve city councils, companies, universities and local shops in different countries. The app is already available in English, Spanish and German and will be soon available in French and other new languages.
  • We have Decathlon as partner for providing rewards in cities worldwide. They could support us for quickly launch of a Pan-European Mobility Challenge with rewards available in most cities thanks to the high availability of their shops in Europe and beyond. We have already launched a pilot project with Decathlon during the las Climate Conference (https://www.cop25challenge.com/) and they are also a customer with all their employees in Spain. After launching the Challenge, we could go ahead involving small shops thanks to city councils (as we made in Barcelona).
  • We can include 'teleworking' in our app, so we can help companies to promote teleworking rewarding their employees for teleworking and measure it efficiently.
  • Based in our projects in other cities, we could scale our solution to involve all 42 big European cities (>500K inhabitants) in less than 6 months and then expand to 177 European large cities (from 100K to 500K inhabitants) in less than one year. We would involve up to 6.000 European big companies (> 500 employees), helping more than 3 million employees to mantain social distance while commuting. We can to increase bicycle use by 10% within target groups and reduce PM particle emissions (air pollution) by 9% (https://northsearegion.eu/bits/, Ciclogreen is involved in that project: https://bit.ly/2Y7bXcV), reducing COVID19 transmission rate and mortality rate in the short and long term.

The necessities in order to continue the project

  • Support to contact cities, companies and universities.
  • Financial support to grow our team of developers to work in product development and invest in communication campaigns of the Pan-European Mobility Challenge

The value of our solution after the crisis

  • Reducing air pollution in cities, we will reduce COVID19 mortality rates by 15%, and help to reduce premature deaths caused directly by air pollution.
  • Help companies to measure their CO2 emissions to comply with regulation
  • Help cities to reduce air pollution, therefore reducing the number of premature deaths currently caused by air pollution (7 million annually in the world) and reducing mortality rates in case of new COVID19 infection events.
  • Help to monitor changes in mobility patterns and use of new infrastructures and services
  • Help to promote a healthier and more environmentally friendly lifestyle amongst workers.

URL to the prototype

https://moveandwin.ciclogreen.com/

URL to the pitchvideo

https://youtu.be/MT3y0APfFIw

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