What does it take for cities to create a true systems change that creates a holistic, positive shift of the entire urban system? Finding and celebrating examples of this feat is at the heart of the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities.
Since 2018, WRI has received more than 900 submissions to the Prize, selected 20 finalists and awarded four $250,000 grand prizes. As we tell the independent jury that selects the grand prize winners, we believe each finalist, every cycle, could be a worthy grand prize winner. They have all demonstrated transformative impacts over multiple years. These projects were not just good ideas; the local governments and community organizations behind them executed brilliantly and their communities have already seen meaningful change.
We recently checked in with three former Prize finalists (one of whom won the grand prize) that focus on different aspects of sustainable transportation to see how their transformations have endured. From ultra-low emissions zones to bus rapid transit networks and school safety zones, these three projects show how cities around the world can reimagine urban mobility, not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also improving the lives of billions of residents.
Equality in Safety: SARSAI
Road crashes are the leading cause of death among young people in Africa. Even for survivors, the consequences can be life-altering: a road-traffic incident can derail a child’s education or end career prospects, while medical costs can push families into poverty. In some countries, road-traffic crashes cost between 1% and 9% of GDP.
Amend, a nonprofit with offices in Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania, won the inaugural 2018-2019 Grand Prize for School Area Road Safety Assessments and Improvements (SARSAI), an innovative road safety project around 18 schools in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Within Dar es Salaam, a neighborhood’s volume of road-traffic injuries was closely correlated with socioeconomic indicators, such as income levels and educational attainment. SARSAI worked with local communities to conduct standardized road safety assessments and provide community education workshops. They then implemented cost-effective, site-specific safety interventions focused on school zones. They installed bollards, speed bumps and footpaths to provide students with safer commutes to school, improved signage to affect traffic, and did community outreach to involve key stakeholders in the design of interventions.
Though the work was focused on the infrastructure around schools, the result was a sea-change for entire communities on how they saw and addressed road safety. Amend’s safety interventions reduced child-vehicle collisions by 26% and lowered vehicle speeds by 40%, protecting children who had previously borne the brunt of crashes, but also improving safety for all road users.
Since winning the Prize for Cities grand prize, Amend has extended its street design services far beyond Dar es Salaam.
“The Prize gave us a big boost as we were starting down this path a few years back,” said Jeffrey Witte, executive director of Amend. “We are now scaling up the principles in SARSAI to roads projects across Africa.”
The nonprofit launched a Safe Schools Africa program in 2022, with help from multiple development banks, including the World Bank and European Investment Bank. The program applies SARSAI’s evaluation and design process to roads in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. So far, it’s helped city planners design more than 948 kilometers (589 miles) of pedestrian-friendly roads, according to Amend. In two years, the project has benefited approximately 100,000 students across 100 schools and received enough funding to continue work into 2030.
In December 2024, Amend earned the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award for its work across Africa.
The evolution of Amend and the approaches pioneered with SARSAI is a testament to the importance of simple, data- and community-backed road safety interventions and the reverberating impacts on a city of safer, smarter infrastructure.
Achieving Inclusion Through Safety: Zu Peshawar
Launched in 2020, and a finalist for the 2021-2022 Prize, the Zu Peshawar bus rapid transit (BRT) service created a more efficient, inclusive alternative to a public transport system that had posed chronic problems for riders in Pakistan’s sixth largest city. Peshawar’s previous patchwork system of hundreds of informal bus operators had clogged streets and offered poor service. It did not reach all parts of the city, it was inaccessible to the disabled, and women and transgender riders frequently faced harassment.
Zu Peshawar transformed the city’s transport infrastructure by creating the first formal public transport system. Informal service operators were folded into a municipality-run agency with, initially, 27 kilometers (16.8 miles) of BRT corridors, 30 stations and 220 diesel-electric hybrid buses. New buses came equipped with low floors to accommodate wheelchairs. A gender action plan was developed, including reserved seating for women and video monitoring. Later, a bikeshare system and 120 kilometers (75 miles) of new footpaths were also launched by the city.
The improvements translated to increased user satisfaction and passenger volume across public transport. Despite launching during COVID-19, Zu Peshawar nonetheless quickly reached 265,000 daily riders (in a city of 2 million) and measured a 10-times increase in female public transport ridership.
The past three years have seen continued growth in the system. According to Imran Mohammad, TransPeshawar’s general manager of operations, Zu Peshawar’s fleet has grown to 244 buses with wheelchair accessibility. The system, he said, now serves 300,000 peak daily riders, with women accounting for 30% of all bus riders and provides access to approximately 5,000 people with disabilities.
“This is unbelievable for us,” said Mohammad. “Because at the time, we were not supposing that this project will increase ridership so much.”
Thanks to the surge in demand, Zu Peshawar is poised for additional expansion. The BRT system recently began feasibility studies for a Phase II, which would add another 20 kilometers (12 miles) of high-speed bus corridors and 250 fully electric buses to the city by 2030. The new buses will replace existing diesel buses and help expand the fleet. Meanwhile, other major Punjab cities have followed Peshawar’s example. Last May, Lahore announced its purchase of 300 e-buses and construction plans for new terminals.
This growing adoption of mass transport comes on the heels of changing national policy. Mohammad pointed to Pakistan’s involvement in COP29 — which included a pledge to protect climate-vulnerable children and a call for climate contributions — as a sign of the federal government’s commitment to environmental mitigation efforts.
Zu Peshawar — the first “Gold Standard” BRT system in the Indian peninsula and the first public transport system in Pakistan to feature diesel-electric hybrid buses — created crucial momentum. “At that time, the people in the other cities were afraid of the new technology,” Mohammad recalled. But after the new model and new vehicles improved service and lowered operational costs, other cities got the “courage” to change, he said.
In July 2022, TransPeshawar won the “Best Smart Ticketing Programme” from Transport Ticketing Global and was an honorable mention for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy’s Sustainable Transport Award in 2022 and 2024.
Zu Peshawar reflects the transformative power that public transportation has to improve the lives and the functioning of an entire city.
Cleaner Transport for All: The Ultra-Low Emission Zone
In 2019, an Imperial College London study found that if no further action was taken to reduce air pollution, around 550,000 Londoners would develop diseases attributable to air pollution over the next 30 years, cumulatively costing the health and social care systems 10.4 billion pounds (about $13.3 billion) by 2050. In response, in 2020, London launched the world’s first-ever Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ). The ULEZ was a Prize finalist in 2020-2021 for its innovative approach and already significant impact on reducing pollution in London.
At its core, the ULEZ is simple: The scheme imposes fees on all gas- and diesel-powered vehicles throughout a prescribed area of London’s downtown, as well as additional fines on vehicles with non-compliant tailpipes. The fees are then invested into the city’s public transport system. Its aim is to incentivize and support cleaner modes of travel and reduce congestion.
But the details also reveal the close ties between transport, public health and social justice. Because of urban design and other factors, road transport pollution in London disproportionately affects low-income communities of color, who, despite contributing the least to air pollution, bear the heaviest burden. By restricting high-emission vehicles and investing in cleaner transport, the ULEZ directly addresses these inequities.
The ULEZ diverted 44,100 vehicles off the roads and drove down roadside nitrogen oxide pollution by 44% within a year of its implementation. Revenue from ULEZ policies was used to replace old diesel buses with electric-powered ones. Additionally, to ease the financial burden of switching to fuel-efficient vehicles in low-income communities, the mayor introduced the UK’s largest-ever scrappage scheme, allocating 210 million pounds (about $253 million) in 2023 to help residents and businesses transition to cleaner vehicles, making cleaner air mobility more accessible to all residents.
Since being named a Prize finalist, London’s city government has expanded the ULEZ to encompass all city districts. By 2024, the city’s fleet of zero-emissions buses was expanded eightfold, reaching over 1,400 buses comprising electric and hydrogen fuel-cell models, in addition to thousands of electric taxis and new vehicle-charging infrastructure. A 2024 report credited the ULEZ with a 62% decrease in roadside nitrogen oxide emissions between 2017 and 2023. Roadside concentrations of fine particulate matter, which can damage lungs and increase risk of heart disease, fell by 40% during that time.
“The success of London’s approach has accelerated policies to reduce air pollution, with Clean Air Zones, based on the structure of the ULEZ, now introduced in Birmingham, Portsmouth and Bath, and others planned in the UK,” said Sarah Morris, air quality manager at the Greater London Authority.
London still lays claim to the toughest congestion pricing scheme in the world, but it has been joined in recent years by similar efforts in Stockholm, Milan and New York City.
By reducing pollution, expanding mobility access and protecting vulnerable communities, London’s ULEZ shows that sustainable transport can be a critical intervention for public health and social justice.
Creating Transformative Change
Navigating the complex city systems that create meaningful change is incredibly challenging. Recognition can play a key role in amplifying successful initiatives, helping them gain momentum, scale up and ultimately reach other communities that might learn from them. The WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities and other awards like it not only help validate impactful work but can help projects attract support and expand their platforms for change.
Ultimately sustained investment and recognition in public transit will be key to building more accessible, resilient and thriving cities. An estimated 4.6 billion riders globally used public transportation in 2024, yet half of all urban residents still lack access to public transit. Finding new ways to invest in public transportation and active mobility is increasingly urgent as cities seek to rein in carbon emissions and continue building thriving economies. Investment in global urban transport infrastructure must double by 2030 in order to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) benchmark.
These transformative projects exemplify this balancing. When transportation networks connect children to education, workers to jobs and communities to essential services, they do more than move people — they fuel productivity, improve public health and drive economic growth, creating stronger and more equitable cities for all.