Sunderland City Council has launched a transport challenge for the development and trial of a solution to shape sustainable transport modes.
In an initiative shared with the Digital Catapult, it plans to provide £10,000 to the competition winner to work with its low carbon team in developing a proof of concept and trialling the solution in the city.
It is looking ways of engaging with employees and residents to capture the reasons behind their travel choices and understand mobility patterns, and said that the data gathered will be used to understand how the choices correlate with factors such as traffic congestion and weather and will feed into its transport strategy.
The council has invited start-ups and medium sized businesses to submit proposals.
Naomi Hutchinson, head of innovation at Digital Catapult North East Tees Valley, said the initiative should help Sunderland Council to better understand residents’ behaviour through data analysis.
Councillor Graeme Miller, leader of the council, said: “Engaging with our business community to showcase their technological skills sits at the core of this transport challenge. I look forward to seeing the ideas and outcomes from a range of local and national businesses to help shape our future transport strategy.”
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
