Prague has just hosted a hackathon with global participation with the target to brainstorm and come up with solutions for cities like the Czech capital where getting from A to B can be a stressful and time consuming process, Radio Praha writes.

ʺA hackathon is an event which lasts 24 or 48 hours non-stop, that’s what we have here. It’s an event where IT specialists, coders, developers, designers come from around the world, they came here, to spend the next 48 hours developing a functional prototype of a service or product or a new design that can improve transport in cities. So get rid of pollution and emissions in cities and stress in transport in general. It is a radical innovation method that has been around for some time, it originated in the United States. It rests on two or three premises: one, if you put together in a small space for a long time lots of people, there will be ideas. If those people come from different countries, different backgrounds it’s all for the better. Again, you have a better chance of producing ideas that will work in the end," explains the organizer of the event Tomáš Studeník.

...The winner was the Red team from Prague’s Czech Technical University. They came up with an idea that should help share out passengers on Prague’s metro trains. Basically, technology measures how many passengers are in each carriage and directs passengers to the ones which have more capacity. The data can be updated in real time along the metro route, saving time and, hopefully, offering a more comfortable trip to all. Prague’s transport bosses have promised to look at the idea and if they like it they will run with it in the future. Other ideas that might get traction are train and metro windows that allow passengers to doodle and send messages and an application that better establishes the availability of bikes for hire near public transit stops.

Read more in full article by Radio Praha here.