India News | MoHUA Launches 'Transport4All Challenge Stage-2'; Startups to Develop Solutions to Transport Problems

New Delhi, Nov 9 (PTI) Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday launched the 'Transport4All Challenge Stage-2' under which startups will be engaged to develop solutions to transport problems in 46 cities.

The challenge, which aims at enhancing people's mobility experience, focuses on digital innovation and invites cities, citizens and innovators to develop contextual solutions to improve formal as well as informal public transport.

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Rajkot, Surat, Karnal, Ranchi, Kochi, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, New Town Kolkata, Bhopal, Kota and Raipur are among the 46 cities participating in the challenge.

In a statement, the ministry said the 'Transport4All through Digital Innovation Challenge' comprises three stages.

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The first stage includes problem identification under which cities, with the support of NGOs, identify key recurring problems that citizens and public transport operators face, it said.

Under the second stage, startups will develop prototypes of solutions to improve public transport with inputs from cities and NGOs, while in the last stage, cities will engage startups for large-scale pilots and refine the solutions based on citizen feedback, the ministry said.

More than 130 cities signed up for stage-1 of the challenge, which was launched on April 15 last year.

The ministry said 100 cities formed a 'Transport4All Task Force' with key government stakeholders working in the transport sector, along with academic institutes, non-profit organisations and informal public transport unions.

These cities successfully conducted surveys with more than two lakh citizens, 15,000 bus drivers and conductors, and 22,000 informal public transport drivers, making it the biggest public transport data exercise in the country, it said.

The 46 cities, who qualify for the stage-2 of the challenge, used the survey's findings to develop over 165 problem statements, which were curated into a final list of eight problem statements, the ministry said in the statement.

The stage-2 of the challenge is open for startups to develop solutions for issues and problems identified by the cities. Interested startups can register with their idea pitches on the Startup India portal.

The minister also launched the 'Citizen Perception Survey' under the Ease of Living Index-2022 for 264 cities to capture citizens feedback about their city.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)