Sustainable travel platform secures £1.2m in race to Net Zero
Midlands-based Modeshift Corporate Premium Member and travel demand management platform ‘You. Smart. Thing.’ (YST) has secured £1.2 million in funding, including investment from the West Midlands Co-Investment Fund (WMCO).
‘You. Smart. Thing.’ addresses sustainable travel solutions for destinations, venues, and live events.
It enables them to generate personalised low-carbon travel plans via an intuitive travel assistant interface that suggests alternative travel routes to visitors and details the carbon footprint of each option.
Attendees of live events often suffer inaccurate travel advice, which causes delays and negatively impacts the visitor experience. This is particularly prevalent for disabled travellers or those in large groups – with 10% of people requesting accessible routes via YST’s Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games travel assistant deployment.
Visitor travel accounts for ~73% of the total carbon footprint for live events globally. By capturing data on travel demand, modal choice, routes, and third-party emissions, YST enables venues to enhance logistics and security management, deliver contextually relevant marketing communications, and reduce the carbon footprint of visitor travel. The reporting gives venues clarity of both their travel demand and their third-party ‘scope 3’ emissions.
For visitors, the service can be tailored to offer bespoke routes and lower carbon modes of transport to specific destinations, venues, events, and performances. The company says this feature is a key aspect of its ability to ‘nudge’ visitors towards net-zero travel.
Investment into ‘You. Smart. Thing.’ will enable the company to enhance its proprietary “eco-algorithm” – helping local authorities reduce region-wide carbon emissions in line with socio-economic objectives. The funding will also fuel the company’s growth with key hires in marketing and finance, product management, and software engineering. The sales and marketing team will also be expanded to facilitate international growth and provide 24/7 customer support.
Empowering guests and venues to make greener decisions around event attendance will help address the UK live events industry’s ambitions to reach net zero by 2050. Venues which use YST have seen an average 30% decrease in CO2 emissions.
In addition to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, ‘You. Smart. Thing.’ has worked with clients such as the Coventry City of Culture Trust, Transport for Greater Manchester, and the Rugby League World Cup.
For the full article visit: Sustainable Travel Platform Secures £1.2m in Race to Net Zero – You. Smart. Thing. (yousmartthing.com)
