We are realizing that if you have people walk and bicycle more, you have a more lively, more liveable, more attractive, more safe, more sustainable and more healthy city. And what are you waiting for?
Jan Gehl, Bike Nation: How Cycling Can Save the World
Initiated in 2020 during the height of COVID-19 Pandemic, the Mobility Awards is a positive competition communication campaign to call on citizens to recognize efforts of cities, businesses, employers and schools to make cities friendly and inclusive for everyone.
The Mobility Awards is driven by a simple goal: the prioritization of the needs of more than 88% of Filipino households in Metro Manila that do not own private cars. Such focus is best expressed when more than the 88%, comprised largely of commuters, are provided with reliable, sustainable, inclusive mobility programs.
Given current conditions not optimal for safe, convenient public transport commute, the prioritization of pedestrian needs and use of bicycles are gaining national prominence as safe, empowering, cost-effective, practical, democratic, high efficiency transport strategies.
But we are still a long way from conditions optimal to the interests of the majority. Hence, we honor leaders in business and local government who are taking early effective action. And challenging laggards to do the same.
The Mobility Awards is organized by the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), MNL Moves, 350 Pilipinas, the Climate Reality Project-Philippines, and Pinay Bike Commuter in partnership with 39 local active mobility organizations nationwide to inspire action, involvement, and coordination among local government units, workplaces, and commercial establishments who want to improve conditions for urban mobility.
This is our way of accelerating and mobilizing support for government’s programs promoting active transport and inclusive mobility. We aim to recognize leaders, those who have been contributing to the movement early-on and those who have been responsive to the changing times by offering forward-looking ideas that help embrace cycling and other means of inclusive, active mobility.
Build, build, build is not the responsibility alone of governments. We believe business establishments, local governments, and heads of workplaces have an essential role to play in development programs where the ultimate aim is not defined by scale or size but the impact on the working households in the country.
Through public online nominations, the Mobility Awards can help promote a culture of feedback, data generation, and collaboration in developing standards and enabling public support for acts of leadership in government and the private sector.
The awards will help cities advance the interests of the more than 88% by elevating the value of inclusive mobility, addressing pollution, while rewarding business establishments and workplaces with public recognition they can benefit from.
For businesses, the Mobility Awards will not only highlight but add robust value to their brand and help provide a commercial boost during the pandemic-induced economic crisis.
For government offices, the awards will help generate public support and pride in ways that help LGU leaders convey third-party generated recognition of accomplishments directly to their constituencies.
We choose to focus for now on efforts that empower citizens to take on cycling-to-work as a regular mobility choice. But recognizing efforts to make cities bicycle-friendly is just a start. We are also testing to develop the Mobility Awards category for pedestrian-friendly local government units across the country. .
We need to continuously elevate the value active mobility brings to goals promoting inclusive development and circular economies, a twin mobius strip that conveys an unending loop of renewal and rebirth akin to the way nature thrives.
Since 2021, Mobility Awards have received 1,200+ nominations, a simple citizen action that is requested from ordinary citizens to help in nation-building by democratizing our streets. These actions has since successfully recognized:
For their initiatives to make cities, workplaces, and business establishments more bicycle-friendly by investing in improved cycling infrastructure; integrating bicycles into regular operations; addressing inclusivity by making cycling safer for vulnerable groups such as persons with disabilities, women, and girls; and applying innovative approaches and programs to promote cycling as a viable transport option for citizens, employees, and customers.
The Mobility Awards has gained prominence among competing cities and businesses as an independent recognition and feedback platform of citizens. cities, establishments and workplaces
Likewise, through collaboration with five local delivery groups, it has recognized: 9 exemplary individuals who have shown remarkable stories
The Mobility Awards likewise recognized 6 individuals who are Siklista ng Bayan, highlighting their noble contribution to community and nation building, while integrating the use of bicycles as a source of livelihood.
The Mobility Awards likewise challenges ourselves to do simple actions from citizens to use open data to help cities and our government build data through the Bilang Siklista.
Since 2021, the Mobility Awards has mobilized thousands of citizen-volunteers to help cities establish baseline data on the number of bicycle trips made on a typical working day. In 2024, over 1,200 volunteers conducted bike counts across 18 local government units covering cities and one municipality in partnership with local governments. Now entering its 5th year in 2025, the annual bike count continues to expand, strengthening data-driven efforts to make cities more bicycle-friendly and inclusive.
A number of these cities utilize the Bilang Siklista to inform their local bicycle count infrastructure planning, and in some instances, have creatively used the data to mobilize the Gender and Development Program to make cycling a part of gender-inclusive initiative of their cities.