In November 2019, the RATP Group launched its first start-up gas pedal dedicated to new mobility and better urban living. For the fourth edition, announced on December 15, interested start-ups can propose their innovations on four themes related to energy efficiency, industrial excellence and new services for cities and passengers. They have until March 3 to submit their applications on the VivaTechnology 2023 “Challenges ” online platform.

The RATP Group is the world’s third largest urban transport operator, operating in 14 countries on four continents. Its ambition is to be the world leader in sustainable and connected urban mobility and to become the preferred partner of smart cities. To this end, it employs some 63,000 people to develop, operate, maintain and modernize innovative mass transit systems to meet people’s mobility needs (metro, streetcar, urban and intercity buses, regional trains, sightseeing, maritime shuttles, transportation on demand).

The 4th edition of the RATP Group’s start-up gas pedal

To achieve its objectives, improve its quality of service, change the way it works and shape the world of tomorrow, the Group relies in particular on innovative partnerships with the start-ups selected by its gas pedal. The first two editions each selected six projects; this year, as last year, five will be selected.

The projects must address the following themes

• Energy efficiency and sustainable development: helping to reduce the company’s energy costs and its carbon impact (solutions for tracking ecological and energy performance and consumption, energy flexibility, solutions for reducing and reusing waste, responsible digital technology, etc.);
• New technologies at the service of industrial excellence: taking advantage of technological advances to optimize company performance and quality of service (maintainer of the future, additive/3D manufacturing, predictive maintenance, supply chain optimization, artificial intelligence, robots & exoskeletons, etc.);
• City and mobility of the future: working to improve the quality of the city by developing new services (supervision of the city and flows, development and integration of soft mobility, real estate asset management, etc.);
• A world-class travel experience: offering travelers from all over the world the best mobility experience, on the eve of major international events (promoting intermodality, new services for travelers and tourists, traveler information, non-infrastructure accessibility, inclusion, etc.).

The pre-selection will take place in March and the official announcement of the winners is scheduled for April 20, 2023, after the vote of the RATP expert committees gathered around each theme.

The selection criteria

• Maturity of the solution: level of implementation of the solution, customer references, team;
• Ability to industrialize the start-up solution: reliability, durability of the solution, ability to deploy internationally;
• Relevance of the solution chosen by the participants, in comparison with the Challenge;
• Ability to present the start-up solution in an innovative way at the RATP Lab.

Six months of support for the winners

In addition to the introductions and business relationships facilitated by the Group’s accelerated start-up status, the winning projects will benefit from

• Access to the RATP Group’s business experts, with the possibility of testing and deploying their solutions or services on the Group’s networks in France and abroad;
• a one-week poster campaign in the metro;
• a pitch to RATP Capital Innovation, the RATP Group’s corporate investment subsidiary, to raise funds;
• six months of support from 1KUBATOR, the Group’s innovation network partner, to accelerate the industrialization of their solutions;
• a place and a pitch at the RATP Group’s Lab at Viva Technology 2023, from June 14 to 17.

To learn more and apply, visit the dedicated page on the Viva Technology platform.

The winners of the 3rd edition

In April 2022, the five winning start-ups of the gas pedal were :

– Cocoparks – real-time MaaS
Facilitating parking and developing intermodality alongside the RATP by installing sensors on lampposts that identify, in real time, free or occupied parking areas for different modes of transport: bicycles, scooters, thermal and electric cars… Once collected, this RGPD-compliant data is shared in the free mobile application Cocoparks.

– Soter Analytics – a smart sensor for health and safety at work
Soter Analytics, a startup born in 2018 in Australia, offers to correct one’s posture with a smart sensor attached directly to the back or arm that detects and signals, through an audible notification or a vibration, a bad work posture.

– Iteca – a digital twin to train maintenance teams
Software publisher Iteca has developed SmartUpp, a 3D immersive assistance solution. In concrete terms, the startup enables the design of a digital twin, an exact copy of a physical object: any equipment or machine can thus be modeled.

– 12Point5 – parking spaces and urban logistics combined
12.5 square meters is the exact surface of a car parking space. Why not rent out unused underground parking spaces to bicycles or two-wheelers in need of a secure space? The startup 12Point5 has taken up the challenge by offering its users to rent a portion of a parking space, corresponding to the size of their mode of transportation.

– StreetCo – a pedestrian GPS to improve accessibility in the city for people with disabilities and reduced mobility. StreetCo is a free, collaborative mobile application that allows users to report temporary (construction) or permanent (stairs, for example) obstacles in real time. The data will soon be integrated into the mobility applications of the cities of Angers and Brest, in collaboration with RATP Dev.

Translated from Lancement de la quatrième édition de l’accélérateur de start-ups du Groupe RATP