The RELIEVE 2026 International Challenge is a competition with a technical and strategic focus and a strong social component, centered on electric mobility. It will take place on the UC Davis campus and is aimed at students, professionals, and enthusiasts of innovation in sustainable transportation.

During the competition, loads were distributed among seven checkpoints located across the UC Davis campus. The electric bicycles were ridden exclusively by women. The objective was to collect all assigned loads in the shortest possible time while minimizing the total energy consumed. To encourage strategic planning, each rider was allowed to transport only a limited number of loads at any given time. Consequently, multiple trips between the home base and the checkpoints were required, following the logistics strategy established by each team. While the rider traveled between checkpoints, the remaining team members stayed at the home base and completed educational challenges. Each challenge had to be completed within three minutes of the rider reaching a checkpoint and was designed to reinforce knowledge related to the competition themes. The final competition score was determined by combining route completion time, total energy consumption, and the points earned in the educational challenges, with the winning team achieving the best overall performance across these criteria.

In RELIEVE 2026, 10 teams participated, and the team “XXXY,” led by Marion Raux from UC Davis, “Tec on wheels,” led by Aya Higashi, and “Petunia,” led by Gaby de la Garza, obtained third, second, and first place, respectively. The electrified bicycles were delivered to UC Davis and UC Riverside, where they will be lent to students for free.

The Women on Wheels competition required the development of a digital twin to monitor the operation of the electric bicycles. The platform provided real-time visualization of each rider’s location on a digital representation of the university campus, the cumulative energy consumption of each bicycle, and the instantaneous payload being transported. In addition, it supported live video streaming from each rider and included a real-time data entry tool for recording the loads collected at each checkpoint. The digital twin platform was developed by a team of 14 students from different universities across Mexico during a summer research internship with the Sustainable Energy Research Group at Tecnológico de Monterrey. The competition involved 19 judges stationed at various checkpoints and the home base to oversee the event and validate competition activities. The event was also broadcast via live streaming to audiences throughout Latin America.