Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Mass public transportation is an expensive operation, as it needs to keep running many buses, even when some buses are empty. Hundreds of small towns around the world cannot afford that. The waiting times in those towns are very long when there is any public transportation available at all. 

Non-existing public transportation leads to ever-growing towns’ dependence on personal cars which are one of the main contributors of greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and traffic congestion. The inefficient bus usage results in more than 1 billion people (specifically low-income residents) having very limited social mobility.

Tunnll is a next-generation mass transportation system for small towns. It can serve many more passengers with the same number of buses and drivers typically used in the industry. At the same time, Tunnll brings absolute car-free intelligent mobility to the town’s residents: with Tunnll, anyone can order a bus ride with an app.

Tunnll is not just software; it is a super-efficient transport operator powered by a Cyber-Physical System and Big Data. It is so efficient, that it can cover the operational costs only from the ticket revenues (Flixbus-like business model).

Tunnll is FREE for the town budget AND it is financially sustainable, meaning it can continuously serve passengers without asking for subsidies.

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How Project Affects Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions:

#### Climate Action

Tunnll reduces negative environmental impact through the sustainable use of resources (vehicles) while making it possible for small towns to satisfy the majority of their transportation needs with public bus transport instead of personal cars.

Public transportation is a much more sustainable alternative to individual vehicle transportation such as personal cars, on-demand minibuses, and ride-sharing services. An average new car produces 92.62 g/passenger-km of carbon dioxide while an average bus produces 47.5 g/passenger-km. Tunnll improves this figure even more and enables an average bus in its transportation network to produce as little as 40.3 g/passenger-km of CO2 emissions.

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# Background

Any public transport bus service is social by default. Passengers gather in one place to travel together to different destinations which makes each individual journey cheaper. In other words, they use a scarce resource (a driver and a bus) in a shared fashion to make traveling more sustainable than traveling by car or taxi. 

However, any social impact disappears when low-income families and individuals are unable to afford public transit whenever they need it or when the public transit service's quality makes each journey a pain. Therefore, a frugal public transit system must provide high-quality service at prices affordable to all customer segments. Only then can it have a tremendously positive effect on the social issues faced daily by many low- and medium-income individuals and families. 

Conventional transport operators' (bus companies, taxis, flexible minibuses and ride-hailing apps like Uber) business model is separate from any socially productive operations. The main drive is to generate as much profit from passengers (or taxpayers) as possible, while making no dramatic changes to their cost structures. Therefore, they continuously move further up the top of the market pyramid solely towards medium and high-income customers. In cases where any of these companies are involved in social or charitable activities, balancing earning profits and nonprofit social change for communities does not automatically make them social businesses with a strong social impact and a positive return to society. 

For Tunnll, being social is not an added, unwanted cost that the business must bear. It‚ a source of competitive advantage. Tunnll's revenue model is built around serving low and medium-income customers with a low-cost value proposition.

# Sustainable Cities and Communities

Tunnll aims to enable access to key destinations and services within every targeted small town in Europe, regardless of the level of income of passengers. In a Tunnll-enabled town, any resident can afford to access any of the town amenities. No need to abandon the small town and emigrate to a big city!

Once a small town resident can have easy transport access to work, school, hospital or any other place in town without being forced to drive a car, Tunnll’s social impact is validated.

This is a life-changing technology for many people.

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In 2021 Tunnll was recognized by the United Nations World Tourism Organization under the UNWTO SDG Startup Competition (finalist of the "SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities" category).

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