The winners from a series of hackathons held in 22 cities around the world met for a final two-day hack which concluded yesterday on the eve of the UITP Global Public Transport Summit (15-17 May 2017) in Montréal.
The ‘hackathon,’ a new initiative from the UITP (International Association of Public Transport) Foundation Youth For Public Transport (Y4PT), brought together computer programmers, designers, developers and more to collaborate on innovative and sustainable solutions to transport problems. Winners from each local hackathon then met for the inaugural Y4PT Global Transport Hackathon at the UITP Summit.
Overall winners were announced at the Opening Ceremony of the UITP Summit and will have chance to meet with operators, authorities, and potential investors over the next three days.
The lack of transport education, especially targeted towards young children, motivated Hackathon winners Team Ditch to develop an app to encourage the use of sustainable transport. The app shows different modes of transport for a selected route, offering various points and rewards depending on the chosen mode of transport. “Kids are the future of commuting,” said team member Maria Kaimaki. “So why is most transport education focused on cars? Our app uses gamification to motivate kids and their parents to ditch cars and use sustainable transport.”
Targeting the confusion that people often face when using unknown metro systems, joint winners Team upWay developed a navigation app that includes 3D modelling and augmented reality technology. The app also includes a feature that allows users to discover surrounding restaurants and services, adding to upWay’s goal of unlocking cities to visitors. “Our app uses augmented reality which lets people actually see where metro stops are located through their phone’s camera. This helps users overcome language barriers and gets them to use public transport in a new city,” said Jonathan Adiaheno.
Second place was awarded to Team Air4, who created a mobile measuring station for air pollution, and an app that uses data from the device to calculate travel routes with the lowest pollution rate. The device and app provide an affordable solution to combating air pollution, a critical issue that claims millions of lives each year.
Team uDeliver took home bronze, with their innovative delivery service app. With the aim of reducing the number of delivery vehicles on the road, uDeliver developed a solution that allows users to make deliveries on behalf of companies. The app connects users to deliveries based on their existing commutes, resulting in a more sustainable and efficient delivery system.
Find out more at: www.y4pt.org/projects/hackathon
About The International Association of Public Transport (UITP)
The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) is a passionate champion of sustainable urban mobility and is the only worldwide network to bring together all public transport stakeholders and all sustainable transport modes. We have 1,400 member companies giving access to 16,000 contacts from 96 countries. Our members are public transport authorities and operators, policy decision-makers, research institutes and the public transport supply and service industry.
Visit our website www.uitp.org.
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About The Global Public Transport Summit
The Global Public Transport Summit is a unique event that covers all urban and regional transport modes. It combines a full programme of congress sessions with an exhibition of the latest solutions, innovations and products in public transport and urban mobility. The last edition of the event - previously known as the UITP World Congress & Exhibition - took place in Milan in June 2015. The event attracted more than 2,200 delegates from 83 countries and 284 exhibitors from across the industry.
Visit us: uitpsummit.org
Connect with us: @uitpsummit and #UITP2017
About Youth For Public Transport
Youth For Public Transport is an international non-governmental youth organisation (NGO) led by Alessandra Gorini that promotes the active participation of young people in advocating sustainable mobility by promoting the integrated use of public transport with other means of transport, to achieve greater well-being and a better quality of life of all people around the world.
Find out more: www.y4pt.org
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