CHILDFY: Improving mobility in the city of Cascais.

The city of Cascais, Portugal, has recently implemented the innovative CHILDFY project, funded by EIT Urban Mobility. The project focuses on providing new mobility solutions to students and young children, with the aim of creating a more sustainable urban mobility system in the city. The CHILDFY project has been designed to specifically address the needs of students and young children, ensuring that their trips to and from school and other destinations are as safe and comfortable as possible. The project is centred around mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), which involves creating a comprehensive platform upon which users can access a wide range of transport options.

The CHILDFY project has enabled the city of Cascais to become more connected and create more efficient transport networks that are better suited to the needs of its citizens. This is a crucial step forward in Portugal’s transition towards a new model of urban mobility that is more sustainable and efficient. The project has also highlighted the importance of providing safe, affordable, and accessible transport options to students and young children, allowing them to move around Cascais more freely and easily.

The CHILDFY project is part of a larger initiative in Portugal to transition towards a new model of urban mobility that is better suited to the needs of its citizens. This new model strives to improve the quality of life for everyone living in urban areas, with a focus on providing safe, affordable, and accessible transport options to users. Overall, the CHILDFY project is a notable example of how Portugal is working towards a new model of urban mobility that is better suited to the needs of its citizens. This project has not only improved the quality of life for users in Cascais, but it has also highlighted the importance of providing safe and affordable transport options to students and young children. The success of this project is a testament to the potential of new mobility solutions to improve the lives of citizens in urban areas.

CHILDFY was in pilot testing at Fernando José dos Santos School and Salesianos de Manique. “One of our biggest problems has to do, exactly, with traffic at the entrances and exits of the school. As it happens, we’ve been looking for solutions for some time. The proposal that the Municipality of Cascais made to us through this app is exactly to find a solution along these lines”, explained Bernardo Correia, Pedagogical Director of the Salesianos de Manique.

CHILDFY is a tested project via EIT Urban Mobility’s RAPTOR programme. More info.


About the CHILDFY platform

CHILDFY is a new app that promotes sustainable mobility in school transport. It is a community for families and schools looking to save time and reduce the flow of cars that every morning fill the school gates.

Through the app, parents can combine and offer transport with other parents for their children, ensuring they get to school efficiently and safely.

Through the CHILDFY platform, users can access information on the various transport options available, such as public transport, shared mobility, and on-demand services. The platform also includes an online booking system, allowing users to book their preferred mode of transport in advance. Additionally, the platform provides real-time updates on the availability of transport services and the estimated time of arrival.

The app promotes car sharing between parents of the same school, having several mechanisms to ensure the safety of students: “All the data of the parents enrolled, we validate it through our internal computer system, which makes it more secure, because there is no parent who joins the programme whose validation does not go through our computer system and that gives security”, concluded the director.

 

 

More information about the CHILDFY project: https://movilidadparafamilias.com/

 

 

 

15 new solutions for cities launched 

EIT Urban Mobility is excited to announce that 15 start-ups and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) have been awarded tailored mentoring and support plus €30 000 in funding through the RAPTOR programme, which focuses on developing agile solutions for cities. 

The start-ups and SMEs are implementing their winning solutions between September and December. 

They will work with the cities of Riga, Tallinn, Bratislava, Cluj-Napoca, Prague City District 6 and City District 7, as well as Tel Aviv, Istanbul, and Cascais, to design, test and refine their solutions to critical urban mobility issues. 

Each of the cities identified specific challenges that can be addressed in a short period of time, to improve the reliability and experience users of public transport and make micromobility more attractive and safer. 

The new round of projects have built on the success of the first four solutions developed in early 2022.

More details of all the fifteen initiatives are below:

Tel Aviv, Israel 

  • Managing sidewalks to prioritise pedestrians and accommodate other users 
    AD Knight (Israel) 

Istanbul, Türkiye 

  • Optimising and integrating the Sea Taxi System into the current public transport system  
    MEEP (Spain) 
  • Technological solutions to facilitate new or improved systems for taxi driver license inspection  
    TEXINSIGHT (Turkey) 

Cascais, Portugal 

  • Assessing on-demand transport services that effectively serve the Parede commercial and service area  
    OpenMove (Italy) 
  • Incentivising parents to take their children to school using carpooling and shared transport app 
    CHILDFY (Spain) 

Prague District 6, Czech Republic 

  • Making mobility in cities safer for supervised groups of children  
    Flare (Slovenia) 

Prague District 7, Czech Republic 

Riga, Latvia 

  • Improving and promoting safer and more convenient micromobility solutions  
    Novality (Spain) 

Tallinn, Estonia 

Cluj-Napoca, Romania 

  • Making public transport more reliable and predictable using real-time data  
    X2 Mobile (Romania) 

Bratislava, Slovakia 

Learn more about the RAPTOR programme here, and visit the site for more details on the new city pilot schemes

Raptor pilot 2 programme – now open for applications

Cities from Regional Innovation Scheme countries are searching for startups and SMEs to help them solve critical urban mobility issues over a six-month period in the second half of this year.

Through the Raptor Pilot 2 programme , Riga, Tallinn, Bratislava, Cluj-Napoca, Prague City District 6 and City District 7 will work with the winners to implement agile solutions. Applicants are sought from EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated states.

Each of the cities identified specific challenges that can be addressed in a short period of time. Applicants are invited to help the cities to:

  • promote active mobility while combating the effects of climate change
  • improve the reliability of public transport
  • make micro-mobility more attractive in winter
  • design and test wearables for kindergarden-aged children to monitor their movements and increase safety;
  • improve the regulation of e-bikes and scooters to reduce safety risks to pedestrians

EIT Urban Mobility will support the awardees financially, technically, and commercially, to develop and test their solution from July to December 2022. A maximum of six awardees, one per city challenge, will be selected to work on delivering their solution.

The winners will be awarded a prize package worth up to €50,000 to support the development and in-situ testing of their Minimum Viable Product (MVP) solution.

The total package includes cash funding of up to €30,000, technical and business mentoring, and support to market and promote the project. 

Previous winners prove success with Raptor Pilot 1

Winners from the Raptor Pilot 1 programme, which is coming to an end, spoke about their experiences and their partnership with EIT UM.

“We applied for the programme because as an emerging startup in the mobility space, we had been looking for opportunities … to pilot our solution in a city context. The Raptor Pilot 1 programme was the perfect opportunity for us to do this,” said Marco Filippi, chief executive officer and founder of Volvero, who worked with Tour and Taxis in Brussels.

“One of the main challenges we encountered [was] lack of funding and concrete stakeholder support from municipalities … EIT UM, through this pilot programME, has been able to provide us with the needed funding, collaboration with major stakeholders, and the exposure that the affiliation with the Raptor programme brings,” he added.

EIT Urban Mobility also helped to coordinate with municipality partners and to finance ASIMOB, a tech startup that monitors the conditions of road infrastructure, who used their prize to trial their pilot in the seaside town of Cunit in Catalonia, Spain. They tested the viability of their idea in a small municipality and learned how to work with various government departments to overcome issues. “We had some technical challenges due to the installation of the system in police vehicles that required adaptation of some automated processes … [that] required a specific development [sic] by us,” said Ibon Arechalde, chief executive officer and co-founder.

Meanwhile, Ossana Tanachian, co-founder and operations manager at Cédrat Conseil, Toulouse, France, said EIT Urban Mobility had been vital in setting the milestones and KPIs for the project as well as redesigning the scope of the pilot to fit the timeframe and budget, and emphasised funding from EIT Urban Mobility was crucial to achieve their objectives. Cédrat Conseil worked with Toulouse Métropole to solve waste management issues and improve last-mile garbage collection.

To learn more about the Raptor Pilot 2 programme, how to apply, and conditions, please contact raptor@eiturbanmobility.eu. The deadline is 27 May 2022.


City RAPTOR Call Awardees Selected

After a rigorous two phase evaluation process, the EIT Urban Mobility is pleased to announce the three consortia selected through the City RAPTOR Call!

The RAPTOR Programme will be implemented in the following three cities between 1 May 2022 and 31 December 2022:

Tel Aviv, Israel 

RAPTOR Project Team: Cityzone and CARNET

Cascais, Portugal 

RAPTOR Project Team: University of Lisbon, Municipality of Cascais, and Impact Hub Vienna GMBH 

Istanbul, Turkey 

RAPTOR Project Team: Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Farplas Otomotiv AŞ, and BGI S.A. 

Each city will see their 3 niche city mobility challenges addressed by the RAPTOR competition to find the best solutions proposed by teams, start-ups, and SMEs around Europe! The competition for solutions is set to open on 3 May 2022.

The challenges – including topics such as water taxis, bus interchange enhancement, and addressing micro mobility theft – will be published on raptorproject.eu by 2 May 2022. Stay tuned!

RAPTOR Pilot Winners Announced

The RAPTOR submission period closed on the 3 October, with more than 55 applications received from 19 countries! After a competitive two-part judging process, one final winner per city challenge was selected. We are pleased to present these winners and excited to share ongoing news in the coming months about their MVP development. 

Smart Data Collection – Cunit Municipality

ASIMOB Urban – Cunit 
Advanced Services In Mobility (ASIMOB) – Start Up – Spain 
www.asimob.es 

Reverse Logistics – Toulouse Métropole

COOP MIL – Cooperative supply chain 
Cédrat Conseil – Start Up – France 
www.cedrat-conseil.com 

Private Vehicle Sharing – Tour&Taxis (Brussels)

Volvero app for sharing vehicles 
Volvero – Start Up – Italy 
www.volvero.com 

Adapting Traffic Demand – Valencia Municipality  

NATUROUTE: preserve nature routes through mobility models 
HOP Ubiquitous – SME – Spain 
www.hopu.eu 

Congratulations to all the winners! Those following RAPTOR should stay tuned for news and updates about the winners and their progress in developing their respective MVPs and subsequent city demos to come in late spring 2022. 

Launch of RAPTOR Call for Proposals

DEADLINE EXTENDED 25 FEBRUARY 2022!

ADDENDUM to City RAPTOR Call: Given the recent reworking of EIT UM Partnership categories and the new Leading City status, an addendum must be made to the City RAPTOR Call 2022 , Section 3.1.2 Partner Categories.  As of 17 February 2022, this is now amended to read.

Within EIT Urban Mobility, cities are our driving force and enabler of faster innovation adoption. To harness the wider city innovation capacity and ensure innovation closer to citizens, we developed a Rapid Application for Transport (RAPTOR) Pilot in 2021. This pilot helped four cities/towns identify niche mobility issues in specific locations with defined parameters and clear success criteria. Once these niche city mobility challenges were defined, a competition was launched for local innovators, teams and startups to propose any solution as long as the original issue and outcomes were addressed. This provided space for lateral thinking beyond our own networks.

Each city, supported by technical and business advisors, selected the most promising solution to receive a prize, in-kind and cash, to advance the proposal to a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to be tested in the city within four months of award. For the Innovation programme of EIT Urban Mobility, agile, entrepreneurial innovation based on problem/challenges with rapid development timelines closer to citizens and in a named location has the potential to become a powerful tool in our innovation agenda.

With this RAPTOR call, the EIT Urban Mobility will select three city partnerships from around Europe to replicate the initial pilot programme.

EIT Urban Mobility Core Partner or an Affiliated Entity of a Core Partner are eligible to apply along with 1 to 2 consortia partner(s) with experience leading or past involvement in managing accelerator programmes and/or venture builders.

Details of the RAPTOR Call:

  • Call opening: 13 December 2021
  • Call closing: 25 February 2022
  • Eligibility and admissibility check: End of February 2022
  • Evaluation of proposals by external experts: End of March 2022
  • Panel hearing: End of March 2022
  • Communication of results: Early April 2022
  • Project Start: 01 May 2022

Budget Allocation: Up to 630.000 EUR for up to three projects


List of documents to be submitted: Application form via AwardsPlatform

List of documents to take into consideration:

Short summary of the topics to be addressed:

Rapid Agile Support for Cities: Rapid Applications for Transport (RAPTOR) aims to address niche city mobility challenges for cities/towns/neighbourhoods and promote local solutions by funding individuals, teams, startups or SMEs with support from the respective city/town/neighbourhood.

Evaluation criteria:

  • Excellence 
  • Impact 
  • Implementation