The Municipality of Groningen, together with their partners from the EU Interreg North Sea Region Project are organising a hackathon – or more accurately a ‘Cargobikathon’ from 9th – 18th February 2021.
The goal? To find solutions and which will help to facilitate a sustainable logistics transition by 2025. Five teams of students from the region will develop creative solutions around the role of the cargo-bike in inner city logistics.
All deliveries to the city centre of Groningen must be emission free by 2025. This means polluting delivery vans and trucks must soon be replaced with sustainable alternatives, such as the cargo-bike.
The Cargobikathon aims to answer some of the following questions:
- How do we promote the use of cargobikes in the city centre of the future?
- Can cargobikes be communally used by businesses (like the smart share e-scooters)?
- What are suitable locations for share points?
- Where can we create freight hubs to transfer goods from trucks to cargo-bikes?
- How do we ensure our inner city streets don’t become clogged with parked cargo-bikes?
It’s all about developing good solutions for a real-life logistics issue in the city, so results can be physical, digital, conceptual and/or financial.
Expert judges
The Cargobikathon will be completely digital, with livestreams, chatrooms and online workspaces all in place. An expert jury, chaired by ICBF Director Jos Sluijsmans, will check in on the teams regularly. The jury also includes:
- Veerle de Meyer from the City of Mechelen;
- Susanne Balm of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences;
- Ilse Mensink of Hive.Mobility, and;
- Philip Broeksma, Groningen Alderman
The final adjudication will take place after nine days, during the closing event on 18th February when the jury and public decide which team of students is awarded the top prize of €1000.
Stay tuned via our social media channels (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn) and we’ll keep you informed on what innovative solutions these great young minds come up with! Or check out the Cargobikathon website here: https://cargobikathon.nl/
Photo credit: Tom Parr
