WALKATOR WINS HACKATHON PRIZE
A transport system based on accelerating moving walkaways or “walkators” grabbed the top prize at the 2nd Y4PT (Youth for Public Transport) Global Transport Hackathon Dubai 2018 which concluded on Monday.
The team composed of Mariam Khalifeh, graduate of civil engineering at American University in Dubai; Italian environmental engineer Riccardo Scarinci; and Argentinian mechanical engineers Facundo Giacomo and Simon Carpman named their project “Namshy”, which comes from the Arabic word that means “to walk.”
“Out project is aimed at encouraging people to walk,” Khalifeh told Khaleej Times. “We have designed Namshy to accelerate and make walkators, which we commonly see at airports, to be available on Dubai streets.”
“Namshy enables everyone in city centres to travel fast and stress-free by avoiding congestion and enabling eco-friendly safe travels,” she added.
Scarinci added that Namshy can make walking faster at 15kmph from point A to point B.
“The width of the Namshy is designed at 1.6m and from 100 to 300 metres in length which can carry up to 7,000 people per hour. This capacity is higher than the 1,600 people in cars the same length of road can accommodate in an hour,” he explained.
The quartet of innovators said they would like Namshy to be introduced at the upcoming Expo 2020 in Dubai, in line with Expo themes of Sustainability, Opportunity and Mobility.
“Namshy is designed to be sustainable as it sources its power from the solar panels on its roofs. It is also designed for both winter and summer – during winter the walkators will be partially opened and closed with AC during hot summer months,” Scarinci explained.
The international public transport hackathon, organised by Dubai’s Roads and Transport authority and the Youth For Public Transport (Y4PT) Foundation, with the support of the International Association of Public Transport, saw participation from students coming from 30 countries around the world who presented solutions advancing the transport sector towards sustainability.