Travel choices debated at hackathon

A hackathon will study ways of travelling to help get solo drivers off the roads, including ride sharing and electric transport.

The NZ Transport Agency’s third hackathon on March 15-17 at its Auckland Innovation Zone will challenge volunteers to unleash the potential of technology to increase travel options and change travel behaviour in New Zealand cities.

A hackathon involves a large group of people meeting over several days to work collaboratively on a topic.

“We’re looking for innovative solutions to travel demand issues” says Leigh Mitchell, co-sponsor of the NZTA’s travel demand management programme.

“We need to encourage people to make travel choices that will reduce the number of single-occupancy cars on our roads.”

“We won’t know what the teams will focus on over the weekend until they get together on Friday night and start tossing ideas around. That’s the magic of a hackathon,” Mitchell says.

“Once an idea emerges and wins support, it all starts to happen very quickly and with a lot of energy and enthusiasm.

“We’re looking for ideas that will change travel behaviours, so that could involve tools that help customers better understand the positive or negative impacts of the way they travel; or data tools to help us understand the impact of transport and mode choices (including micro mobility) at a community level.

“Or it may simply be some ideas for incentivising or organising ride sharing. “

The mode+alt+shift Hackathon is an innovation initiative by the agency, with 120 volunteers from diverse backgrounds working in teams for 48 hours to apply fresh and creative thinking to a difficult transport issue.

NZTA connected journey solutions director Martin McMullan says hackathons allow collaboration with customers and bring up new ideas to tackle systemic challenges.

“The hackathon will ignite and forge innovation that will feed into the agency’s thinking about how it can cater to customers’ ever evolving and shifting expectations of travel.

“It’s about technology unlocking travel choices – moving people, not machines.”

Organisers hope to repeat the success of a September hackathon where winners continued on to sell their concept to a commercial company. It means the ParkRite concept for addressing the abuse of disability parking spaces will be piloted and tested this year.