Toyota Mobility Foundation names UK business BetterPoints a winner in its Global Sustainable Cities Challenge

• BetterPoints from the UK and Barcelona-based OpenMove, in partnership with Factual Consulting, named as winners in the Venice section of the Toyota Mobility Foundation’s Sustainable Cities Challenge
• Three-year global competition to promote sustainable urban mobility

The Toyota Mobility Foundation (TMF) and the City of Venice have announced Better Points and OpenMove, in partnership with Factual Consulting, as winners in the foundation’s Sustainable Cities Challenge. The result marks the conclusion of Venice section of TMFF’s three-year global competition to support sustainable urban mobility solutions.

While Venice is globally renowned for its historic canals, it is also a major transportation hub powered by a vast network of roads, rail links, and an international airport. The city has invested heavily in sustainable infrastructure and is rapidly improving the sustainability of its public transit system. However, these low and zero-carbon options remain underutilised as residents habitually rely on car-based, long-standing transit routines. The challenge called on innovators to create solutions tailored to the mainland and islands, where the great majority of citizens live and work. The goal was to inspire a shift toward sustainable travel, whether through public transit, active mobility – particularly through cycling and walking – or shared transit.

BetterPoints Ltd, based in Surrey, works with businesses, public organisations, and universities to change the way people think about how they move. The team are using their app, Bella Mossa, to reward Venice citizens for switching to more active and sustainable modes of travel. More than 40 techniques, ranging from gamification to local rewards programmes, are built into the app and programme to support successful behavioural change. From October 2025 to February 2026, Bella Mossa replaced 45,000 car journeys, resulting in almost 1,000 miles of bicycle travel by people not classified as typical cyclists.

Jack Windle, Chief Sustainable Transport Officer at BetterPoints, said: “With support from the Toyota Mobility Foundation and the City of Venice, we have developed our Bella Mossa platform to offer tools to Venetians including automatic trip recording, local rewards partnerships and an ‘adopt a folding bike’ scheme. We are excited to build on our success, fostering a culture of sustainable mobility in Venice and helping people access and enjoy the great infrastructure the city authority is delivering.”

Factual Consulting, in partnership with OpenMove, is an innovation and strategy consulting firm based in Barcelona, committed to transforming mobility. The company’s winning digital platform, Andemo, promotes sustainable mobility habits through innovative approaches, such as micro-incentives, which use small rewards or tokens to drive behavioural change. Andemo achieved 1,750 downloads during its pilot period, with 87 percent of users accessing the app an average of three times per day.

Josep Bordella, Factual Consulting CEO, commented: “Our solution, Andemo, aims to be more than just an app; it aspires to be a central tool for making transport more inclusive and accessible, connecting people to the best transport options their city has to offer. By lowering the barrier to try new transport modes, we hope to help create a sustainable future for tomorrow.”

The Sustainable Cities Challenge has funded and enabled the trialling of both winners’ solutions. Each winner previously received $180,000 in implementation funding and will now utilize an additional $500,000 to scale their solutions in Venice. This implementation funding holds potential benefits not just for the winning innovators, but also for the city as a whole: as riders gain new tools to facilitate their use of public transit links, they could find themselves taking easier journeys leading to lower environmental impacts, with the potential to ease congestion on roads and highways.

Roberto Di Bussolo, Head of the Sustainable Mobility Sector, City of Venice, said: “The Toyota Mobility Foundation recognised the significant growth potential that our city already possesses in the field of sustainable mobility. It was precisely this strength that led to our selection as one of only three cities worldwide where substantial resources will be invested in testing innovative mobility solutions. The challenge carried forward through the Sustainable Cities Challenge has provided the city with a unique opportunity to research and pilot new solutions capable of supporting residents, workers, students and visitors over time in adopting more sustainable mobility habits.”

Venice is one of three global cities participating in the Sustainable Cities Challenge, alongside U.S. host city Detroit, and Varanasi, India. All three locations have common goals: to catalyse solutions that advance equitable, sustainable, and inclusive systems of movement.

Monica Perez Lobo, Programme Director and Toyota Mobility Foundation Europe and Vice President for Sustainability at Toyota Motor Europe, said: “At the Toyota Mobility Foundation, we believe the future of urban mobility lies in inclusive, human‑centred solutions that are both sustainable and scalable. Through the Sustainable Cities Challenge, we work with cities like Venice to turn ambition into action. Both winners demonstrate how innovation can motivate people to adopt more sustainable ways of moving, improving the quality of life while reducing emissions. Ultimately, our goal is to build a legacy of sustainable and resilient cities.”

The Sustainable Cities Challenge is funded by the Toyota Mobility Foundation and conducted in collaboration with Challenge Works and World Resources Institute. Venice’s winners illustrate how supporting local innovators can create meaningful impact in communities, with the potential to scale solutions across cities and beyond.

ENDS

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For more information visit sustainablecitieschallenge.org.

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