In August 2021, KONE launched a co-innovation challenge to find innovative solutions, services and business models on sustainable mobility to be piloted in the SPARCS Espoo lighthouse. Sustainable business model innovations are the key drivers to advance sustainable mobility in future smart cities. Through sustainable business model innovations corporations aim to create significantly reduced negative impacts on the environment and positive impacts on the social wellbeing, stakeholder value and accessibility, without forgetting the economical perspective. Therefore, in the KONE x SPARCS Sustainable Mobility Challenge, the end-user needs and sustainability impacts – from all the three angles of social, ecological and economical – were placed at the center of the design process from the beginning. 

The Sustainable Mobility Challenge raised a lot of interest in the field of mobility and ICT, reaching over 100 small and middle-sized companies. The selection process was organized in two rounds. On the first round, eight sustainable mobility solutions were selected to be pitched to the jury consisting of experts from KONE and the city of Espoo. The selected mobility solutions were related to four major trends: micro mobility, autonomous vehicles, shared mobility, and multimodal sustainable travel chains. On the second round, four teams proceeded to the mentoring and, in the end, pitched their iterated solutions and pilot proposals to the jury.

The winning solution helps citizens make informed daily mobility choices

The jury selected a winning solution to be piloted within SPARCS demo areas. The selected solution, is a mobile community application Move together by Moprim to measure and visualize personal mobility behavior and help local communities to make sustainable mobility choices together to reach common targets. The mobility pilot aims to help citizens to understand CO2e emissions related to everyday mobility behavior. It also helps to make more informed mobility choices which meets the needs of Espoo citizens, identified through user studies during the SPARCS project. The solution will be piloted at Espoo demo sites during the Spring 2022. It will create interesting results based on the mobility data gathered on the platform and insights gathered through user studies to understand the complexities of making everyday mobility choices.

Four mobility finalists transforming the way people move in cities

Find out more about the four finalists, who pitched their innovative solutions and services during the final round of the mobility challenge. All of them help to make urban mobility more sustainable by reducing traffic emissions, sharing assets and introducing new business models to support local communities to thrive. 

Moprim is a software company developing data solutions for smart mobility based on patented methods for using accelerometers. Creating data and insights from everyday movement to fuel smart mobility. Find out more: MOPRIM – Fueling Smart Mobility  . 

Shareway enables renting and sharing parking places based on sharing economy. They provide solutions in parking to reduce the amount of space and resources used in parking. Find out more: Etusivu | Shareway

Colossus Finland offers cargo bikes as a public service with an outlook to turn users to private cargo bike owners. They offer to try out this lifestyle as part of their public cargo bike service, with an option to get a private cargo bike easily through the network.

Urvis bike is a one stop solution for last mile delivery offering robust e-cargo bike as a service with the aim to provide a cargo bicycle that will grant its users greater flexibility in urban areas. Find out more: Urvis – Subscription-based warranty covered cargo bikes

The Sustainable Mobility Challenge was organised by KONE Corporation and Gaia Consulting in collaboration with SPARCS Espoo and Leipzig lighthouse city partners.