urbansnitch

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urbansnitch is a Swiss IoT platform that continuously collects real-world urban mobility data. We propose to build a blockchain layer that certifies data integrity at capture, enables smart contract-based access control, and incentivizes municipalities to share mobility data into the national MODI ecosystem. Urban mobility data is fragmented, unverified, and hard to share. Municipalities, engineering firms, and national platforms like MODI struggle to access continuous, reliable, and trustworthy mobility data. Most available data comes from short-term studies, isolated sensors, or proprietary systems with no interoperability. The result is poor planning decisions and underinvestment in sustainable mobility infrastructure. urbansnitch is a Swiss urban analytics platform that addresses this gap at the source. We operate a network of compact, plug-and-play IoT sensor nodes deployed on existing public infrastructure like streetlights, continuously collecting multimodal mobility data: vehicle counts by category, speed, direction, pedestrian and cyclist flows, alongside environmental indicators including noise, air quality, temperature, and humidity. Our prototype is operational and we are currently running a proof-of-concept with a municipality in Canton Ticino. The platform feeds a real-time dashboard and digital twin layer, allowing municipalities and civil engineers to make evidence-based planning decisions. Our primary customers are Swiss municipalities and civil engineering firms that need continuous, structured mobility data to support planning decisions. Today they rely on expensive, one-off traffic studies that are quickly outdated. urbansnitch replaces these with a permanent, affordable sensing layer that scales across any number of locations. In a market of over 2,000 Swiss municipalities, most of which lack access to real-time mobility intelligence, the commercial opportunity is substantial and largely untapped. Our proposal for this challenge is to build the blockchain layer that makes urbansnitch data trustworthy, traceable, and shareable at national scale. To improve real-world data collection, we deploy IoT sensor nodes on existing street infrastructure, replacing short-term spot studies with continuous, structured mobility data streams. To ensure reliability and traceability, we implement on-chain hashing of sensor data at the moment of capture, combined with proof-of-presence verification for each active node, creating an immutable and auditable data record. To incentivize data sharing, municipalities that contribute data to the MODI ecosystem receive token-based rewards proportional to the volume and quality of data produced, turning data contribution into a measurable benefit rather than an administrative burden. To enable differentiated access control, smart contracts define who can access data and at what level of granularity: aggregated mobility indicators are available openly, while raw sensor data requires authorization and is subject to defined access conditions. The project is structured in four phases. The first phase, currently underway, covers hardware deployment and real-world data collection in Canton Ticino. The second phase, to be executed with this grant, focuses on blockchain architecture design and protocol selection. The third phase implements the blockchain layer directly on live urbansnitch data, including on-chain hashing and smart contract-based access control. The fourth phase validates the integrated system with institutional stakeholders and tests compatibility with the MODI platform. The CHF 25,000 grant would be allocated as follows: CHF 15,000 toward sensor hardware to expand the network and generate richer datasets for blockchain validation; CHF 5,000 toward blockchain development, including smart contract design and on-chain integration; CHF 5,000 toward data infrastructure to support the increased data volume and enable MODI-compatible data flows. What makes our approach credible is that the hard part is already done. While most blockchain mobility proposals start from architecture and never reach real data, urbansnitch already has hardware in the field, real datasets, and an advanced negotiation with a municipality in Canton Ticino. The blockchain layer we propose to build with this grant is the missing bridge between our existing data infrastructure and the national MODI platform.

Project Idea Metadata

Project Idea Name: urbansnitch
Date: 5/27/2026 12:25:27 PM
Administrators:

Project Idea Description

Urban mobility data is fragmented, unverified, and hard to share. Municipalities, engineering firms, and national platforms like MODI struggle to access continuous, reliable, and trustworthy mobility data. Most available data comes from short-term studies, isolated sensors, or proprietary systems with no interoperability. The result is poor planning decisions and underinvestment in sustainable mobility infrastructure.

urbansnitch is a Swiss urban analytics platform that addresses this gap at the source. We operate a network of compact, plug-and-play IoT sensor nodes deployed on existing public infrastructure like streetlights, continuously collecting multimodal mobility data: vehicle counts by category, speed, direction, pedestrian and cyclist flows, alongside environmental indicators including noise, air quality, temperature, and humidity. Our prototype is operational and we are currently running a proof-of-concept with a municipality in Canton Ticino. The platform feeds a real-time dashboard and digital twin layer, allowing municipalities and civil engineers to make evidence-based planning decisions.

Our primary customers are Swiss municipalities and civil engineering firms that need continuous, structured mobility data to support planning decisions. Today they rely on expensive, one-off traffic studies that are quickly outdated. urbansnitch replaces these with a permanent, affordable sensing layer that scales across any number of locations. In a market of over 2,000 Swiss municipalities, most of which lack access to real-time mobility intelligence, the commercial opportunity is substantial and largely untapped.

Our proposal for this challenge is to build the blockchain layer that makes urbansnitch data trustworthy, traceable, and shareable at national scale.

To improve real-world data collection, we deploy IoT sensor nodes on existing street infrastructure, replacing short-term spot studies with continuous, structured mobility data streams. To ensure reliability and traceability, we implement on-chain hashing of sensor data at the moment of capture, combined with proof-of-presence verification for each active node, creating an immutable and auditable data record. To incentivize data sharing, municipalities that contribute data to the MODI ecosystem receive token-based rewards proportional to the volume and quality of data produced, turning data contribution into a measurable benefit rather than an administrative burden. To enable differentiated access control, smart contracts define who can access data and at what level of granularity: aggregated mobility indicators are available openly, while raw sensor data requires authorization and is subject to defined access conditions.

The project is structured in four phases. The first phase, currently underway, covers hardware deployment and real-world data collection in Canton Ticino. The second phase, to be executed with this grant, focuses on blockchain architecture design and protocol selection. The third phase implements the blockchain layer directly on live urbansnitch data, including on-chain hashing and smart contract-based access control. The fourth phase validates the integrated system with institutional stakeholders and tests compatibility with the MODI platform.

The CHF 25,000 grant would be allocated as follows: CHF 15,000 toward sensor hardware to expand the network and generate richer datasets for blockchain validation; CHF 5,000 toward blockchain development, including smart contract design and on-chain integration; CHF 5,000 toward data infrastructure to support the increased data volume and enable MODI-compatible data flows.

What makes our approach credible is that the hard part is already done. While most blockchain mobility proposals start from architecture and never reach real data, urbansnitch already has hardware in the field, real datasets, and an advanced negotiation with a municipality in Canton Ticino. The blockchain layer we propose to build with this grant is the missing bridge between our existing data infrastructure and the national MODI platform.