Santiago joins green mobility rewards programme

Santiago in Chile and the Skåne region in Sweden have joined the WheelCoin for Cities partnership programme, which rewards users for walking, cycling and using public transport.

The WheelCoin app from mobility software company Iomob detects a person’s mode of travel and rewards sustainable choices.

$WHL tokens can be used within the app on partner services such as discounted trains, scooters, bikes, electric taxi rides and car-sharing, as well as ‘digital collectibles’ or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of points of interest in a city. As a cryptocurrency token, $WHL can also be bought and sold in the market.

Boyd Cohen, CEO of Iomob, likens the tool to “airmiles for green mobility”. One $WHL equates to roughly 1kg of avoided emissions.

Cohen added that while the app has a crypto element, it isn’t central.

“About 80 percent of the total benefit you can get from using the app, you would never even have to know about or interact with crypto at all,” he told Cities Today. “The app can operate standalone without using crypto.”

WheelCoin was launched in 2022 and is being used in more than 110 countries. Cohen declined to share exact user figures beyond that it’s “in the thousands”.

When a user has downloaded WheelCoin and authorised the anonymised tracking of their mobility choices, the app passively detects movement through triangulated smartphone data.

The detection accuracy is over 95 percent, according to Iomob.

City programme

The WheelCoin for Cities partnership programme aims to offer municipalities a new way to nudge people to make sustainable mobility choices. The Skåne region and Santiago are the first to join. Regional transport operator Skånetrafiken recently rolled out promotional videos on its infotainment screens.

In return for promoting adoption of the WheelCoin app, cities receive anonymised data on the mobility choices of people in their community and the related emissions. Cities are also encouraged to collaborate with WheelCoin on digital collectibles and discounts, but this is not mandatory.

Luz María García, manager of Santiago’s Smart City programme, told Cities Today: “The WheelCoin programme represents an opportunity not only to keep pushing for the use of sustainable means of transportation, but also to reward those who embrace this means regularly. And what better way to do it than through gamification.

“We believe WheelCoin makes it fun and interactive for people to continue to [join] in the global endeavour for sustainable transport.”

There is no cost for cities or end users of WheelCoin. One revenue model is through the Business programme for companies that want to record their Scope 3 carbon emissions, including employee commuting and business travel. Cohen says the app offers more accurate data than the surveys that organisations typically use.

In addition, users can buy booster NFTs and those using the Android app can pay for a subscription to increase their $WHL earning power. In future, there will also be paid options for brand partners.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies often raise concerns about high energy use and related emissions.

Digital assets associated with WheelCoin are deployed on the Celo blockchain, which claims to be “carbon-negative” due to its proof of stake algorithm and carbon offsetting.

“WheelCoin is committed to climate action so it would be a big mistake for us to commit to a technology that is by default carbon-intensive,” said Cohen.