Riga becomes testing ground for mobility experimentation

This month, residents get to experience prototypes developed from bright ideas

The Riga City Council is playing partner to a project that has the purpose to test out in real life various forward-thinking ideas in the field of urban mobility. The initiative is organized by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and features six different teams, which have set up their prototypes in different parts of the Latvian capital.

The urban environment in this case will serve as a real-life testing ground for the development of mobility innovations and ideas with high potential and added value.

Mobility Incubator Program

The idea is that the prototypes will serve as the basis for attracting investors to the city and consequently raise the living standards of the inhabitants in more ways than one.

Here are the six pilot projects being tested on the capital city territory:

• The Mikropoint team has created a new mobility point in Zemitana Square, which combines a shed for electric scooters and bicycles, a mini bicycle workshop and a bench in one place. The solution aims to expand the range of means of transport around Teika, thus improving the mobility network with environmentally friendly vehicles;
• The getUgo team offers remote control of autonomous vehicles, machines and other devices with a teleoperation software and hardware platform; 
• The E-Stop team offers a solution for storing and charging personal electric scooters installed at the Alfa shopping centre;
• The Electrify team is promoting electromobility by offering electric minibuses for passenger transport. This idea is still under development;
• The "Velorūme" team offers a bicycle parking lot or a garage for storing bicycles the size of one parking space. This prototype is installed at 290 Brīvības gatve;
• The Simplecharge team encourages the use of street lighting poles to charge electric vehicles. It is planned that prototypes will be created in Apuzes Street.

The project started with a 48-hour mobility hackathon in April, followed by a summer incubator program. It took ten weeks for the teams to develop a prototype for their particular mobility solution.