Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, in the presence of Shri. Manoj Joshi, Secretary, MoHUA, Shri. Kunal Kumar, Joint Secretary and Mission Director, Smart Cities Mission, MoHUA, and Shri. Rahul Kapoor, Director, Smart Cities Mission, MoHUA; launched the Stage 2 of the Transport4All Challenge, inviting Indian startups to create digital solutions to reform formal and informal public transport in India.
About Stage 1
More than 130 cities signed up for Stage 1 of the Challenge, launched on 15th April 2021. 100 cities formed a Transport4All Task Force (TTF) with key government stakeholders and governments working in the transport sector, along with academic institutes, non-profit organizations, and IPT unions. Check out the highlights from Stage 1.
Stage 1 saw the biggest public transport data exercise in the country with surveys from 46 cities. These cities successfully conducted surveys with more than 2 lakh citizens, 15,000 bus drivers and conductors and 22,000 informal public transport (autos etc) drivers— making it the biggest public transport data exercise in the country.
These cities—who qualify for Stage 2 of the Challenge—used the surveys findings to develop more than 165 problem statements, that is now curated into a final list of 8 problem statements by the Challenge team.
What next?
Stage-2 of the Challenge is open for startups to develop solutions for the issues and problems identified by the cities.
Startups are now invited to develop contextual solutions and scale them up at a national level for the 8 curated statements. Cities and startups will receive guidance to develop and test various solutions, learn from them, and scale them to build people’s trust in public transport and enhance their mobility.
The top 1-2 solutions for each problem statement will not only receive awards of up to ₹ 20 lakhs but will have the opportunity to scale up solutions at a national level.
The startups with working solutions stand to get empanelled with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and access many opportunities to implement their solutions in several cities in the future.
Are you a startup or do you know startups that would like to get involved in a national-level challenge to make a difference in Public Transport?
Head to the Startup India portal and register, before 30th December 2022.
Startups now can get their DPIIT registration till 15th January 2023.
For more information, visit transport4all.in
Where are we in the Three Stages of the Challenge?
The Transport4All through Digital Innovation Challenge comprises three stages:
● Stage I PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION: Cities, with the support of NGOs, identify key recurring problems that citizens and public transport operators face
● Stage II SOLUTION GENERATION: Startups develop prototypes of solutions to improve public transport with inputs from cities and NGOs
● Stage III PILOT TESTING: Cities engage startups for large-scale pilots and refine the solutions based on citizen feedback
We look forward to the brightest minds in the country developing solutions to the pressing problems identified by the public to improve facilities for a better future in formal and informal public transport.
We’d like to acknowledge the leadership of the Ministry of Housing and Affairs, Smart Cities Mission, Urban Transport and Association for State Road Transport Undertakings—hosts for the Transport4All Digital Innovation Challenge. We thank our knowledge partners, the World Bank, for bringing their global technical expertise in digital innovation and guiding startups and cities. We also thank the technology platform partners, Cix and Startup India, for engaging with startups and for providing a platform for cities and startups to collaborate easily.
As Co-host and Coordinator for the Challenge, ITDP India provides technical and communication expertise to cities, facilitates capacity-building workshops and one-on-one sessions with them, and sets up peer-learning platforms so cities can learn from one another.
