Bombardier Transportation is now accepting entries for its interactive YouCity contest. This online competition is open to students and professionals with a vision for the future of urban mobility—from developed cities to emerging cities of the future.

Three Possible Workstreams
Candidates will develop their concepts in one of three workstreams, focused on engineering (product definition, technical concept); business (business model, stakeholders, financing strategy); or urban planning (network layout, urbanism concepts, integration). They will be asked to apply their proposals to one of three types of cities: mature markets, represented by London; Belo Horizonte, Brazil, representing BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China); and Vientiane, Laos, for new emerging markets.

Teams of up to five members must register on the YouCity website by May 13, 2012, selecting which city and which stream they wish to compete in. The deadline for final submissions is mid-June 2012.

Evaluation Process
The winning concepts will be evaluated by experts at Bombardier and voted for by YouCity's online community and on social media. Then, designers of the top concepts in each stream will be invited to Bombardier Transportation’s head office in Berlin, Germany, to collaborate on a final proposal. This proposal will be presented in September at InnoTrans in Berlin.

In hosting this online competition, Bombardier is building on the success of its YouRail design competition, presented at the last InnoTrans in 2010. That competition attracted 4,239 entries and 8,565 comments on the future interior design of passenger trains, many of which fed into ongoing research and development projects.

“With more than two thirds of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050, these commercial and cultural hubs urgently need to evolve in terms of improving the mobility of their populations and driving sustainable economic growth,” said Martin Ertl, chief innovation officer for Bombardier Transportation.

“Our YouCity contest will provide innovators of the future a unique platform to demonstrate what smart urban mobility will look like on the horizon.”

For more information about the contest, click here.