Venice City Challenge

Venice City Challenge

About the Sustainable Cities Challenge Venice

We are calling on innovators to:

Create solutions that change behaviour, increasing the use and adoption of existing low and zero-carbon transport modes in the city of Venice, with a focus on the mainland and motorized islands.

Solutions must address at least one of the following:

  • Increasing active mobility
  • Increasing public transport use
  • Increasing usage of shared mobility

Any proposed solution must take into account the motivational aspect of behaviour change.

Entries for this challenge are now closed.

Why do we want to innovate in the City of Venice?

The City of Venice is an iconic Italian port and one of the world’s oldest tourist and cultural centers. It is made up of the historic city of Venice and mainland urban areas such as Mestre and Marghera.

Venice has invested in developing an impressive range of sustainable mobility options, that include water, land, and railway. A few highlights:

  • A growing 180 km local bike lane network
  • A pioneering hybrid car-sharing service, the first of its kind in Italy
  • Widespread shared micro mobility services
  • An extensive public transport system via water, land, and railway, which is being made ever more sustainable with 30 new electric buses and plans for 44 more, along with 90 fuel cell buses by 2026.
  • An expected 32 hybrid water buses in Venice’s waterways by 2029

However, this diverse range of low to zero-carbon modes of transport is currently underutilized.

The City of Venice is looking for innovative solutions that shift behaviour, focusing on understanding users’ motivations rather than tech, infrastructure or government policy.

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Watch this to learn more about the Venice City Challenge

Timeline

Tuesday 11 June
Venice City Challenge launches
Monday 30 September
Entries close
November
Semi-finalist announcement
May
Finalist announcement
Early
Winner’s announcement
  • 2024
  • 2024
  • 2024
  • 2025
  • 2026

Partners

  • sustainable cities challenge logo
  • wri
  • Challenge Works - a Nesta enterprise
  • 89up
  • city of Venice logo
  • Varanasi logo
  • city of Detroit logo