COVID-safe travel
The challenge
The Mayor of London is looking for innovators to develop solutions that leverage health and travel data to help increase confidence and enable a safe re-opening of London’s economy.
London-wide
All Londoners who have access to digital technology and who remain economically active at a variety of levels of restrictions. The use of such a tool will grow as restrictions are eased and more Londoners increase their economic activity.
- London has been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic both in terms of case numbers and social and economic effects. Since the start of the pandemic London has had more cases than any other region in England and the highest rates per population.
- There are specific challenges for people who live and work in London: higher rates of public transport use and higher population density mean that Londoners are likely to have a greater number of contacts in their day to day lives. Evidence has shown that certain demographic groups are more susceptible to COVID-19 infection and complications, including a disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Londoners from black and minority ethnic groups.
- Across London’s boroughs, there are a variety of COVID-19 infection data available, and travel and busyness data available such as through TfL Go. However, there is no easy and accessible way for Londoners to plan their journey – for example, to work or to the shop – that integrates local health data with travel data and up-to-date guidance on risk to enable them to make informed decisions around essential travel and tasks.
- There are multiple data sources that could be utilised to address this challenge, including local COVID-19 case data , busyness data and London Transport data, that are open source.
- This tool should support Londoners who continue to be economically active under periods of high-tier restrictions (e.g. within the construction sector) to do so safely and to support all Londoners to engage in safer economy activity during periods of lessened restrictions. This will facilitate the safe re-opening of London’s economy by enabling Londoners to access up-to-date information about COVID-19 rates, travel, and health guidance.
The solution
Create a digital tool that sources and integrates health and travel data with up-to-date guidance and advice to help Londoners make informed decisions and personal risk assessments in relation to COVID-19.
- Digital, real-time, easy to use, and accessible.
- Enables Londoners to access real-time information showing COVID-19 rates across boroughs utilising infection data
- Enables Londoners to access up-to-date health advice and guidance in line with current restrictions
- Enables Londoners to make informed decisions around essential travel and tasks
- Safer economic activity facilitated at a variety of levels of restrictions
- Confidence of Londoners increased
- Londoners equipped with up-to-date information and empowered to understand and calculate risk
Winners and finalists
Each team will receive £10,000 and the opportunity to work closely over five weeks with the Resilience Partner behind their challenge – which include councils, government agencies, BIDs and charities – to develop their solution. They’ll also receive specialised support in service design, pitch coaching, data usage, navigating government procurement processes and more. At the end of the first phase, the judges will review each team’s progress and choose one winner in each challenge, to be awarded £40,000 each and the chance to implement their solution.
Aubin is a new door-to-door journey planner and companion app which empowers people to travel confidently when using public transport during Covid. Unlike other journey planner apps, Aubin includes specially designed features for passengers to plan journeys to minimise potential exposure to infection by choosing quieter routes and via lower infection areas.
Aubin will suggest the best times of day to travel and routes which will allow the passenger to maintain social distancing. It also includes live information such as faulty lifts, toilets, step-free access and more. When there is a disruption, Aubin will notify and assist passengers on ways to avoid the disruption or using a ‘get me home’ function, it will take you home using the same settings as before.
Aubin will provide passengers with confidence, reassurance and will reduce anxiety when using public transport. Passengers can make informed decisions easily about their travel plans, all in one app.
“The MoL Covid-Safe Travel Challenge is a great initiative which will bring some real benefit to London and its commuters. Using JNCTION’s tech, we’re empowering passengers to make informed decisions, travel with ease and find low risk journeys for a safe re-opening of London.” Emlyn James
TravelSpace is a platform created in response to Covid-19 to restore user confidence in the railway system and help operators manage demand. It is an overlay booking system that gives passengers virus safety support by providing the information needed to make safe decisions around public transport and to reduce crowding at stations and onboard services.
TravelSpace addresses travel anxiety as we recover from Covid-19 by using real time demand data to inform passengers how busy services are and to help make the right travel choices for them, and for operators TravelSpace has the inbuilt functionality to set quota controls and limit capacity in response to changes in social distancing guidelines.
“We are excited about the opportunity to further develop TravelSpace with the support of the Mayor’s Resilience Fund. We have spent a lot of time developing the TravelSpace product, and the access to expertise and data will not only improve our product, but improve our skills and capabilities to deliver more innovative systems and products to improve the passenger transport market". Richard Fisher, Managing Director, Ten Transport Consultancy
Zipabout will provide a simple, free to use, information system to help people safely navigate around crowding, transport and health-led disruption when moving around London. Available to every business and venue in London, this will allow them to welcome their visitors, employees and customers back with confidence – scanning a QR code, following a link or pressing a button on the venue website is all the customer will need to do to receive personalised directions and realtime information on their channel of choice.
“This an exciting opportunity for us to partner with City Hall to make a real leap forward in the economic recovery of London as we emerge from Covid19. We are working hard to ensure that the Resilience Fund investment creates future benefits as well. By working with the transport operators, venues and businesses we can create a free, easy to use service for visitors and residents that will continue to deliver results long after the current pandemic has subsided.”
About the partner
The Greater London Authority, or City Hall, is a strategic regional authority with powers over economic development, transport and regeneration. We welcome applications that adhere to the principles of open data and open standards as set out in the Emerging Technology Charter.
- Access to data
- Access to networks and partnerships
- Strategic direction
- Ensuring public health messages align with National guidance and most up to date evidence
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