What started as a Tauranga pilot in 2022 to encourage people to choose more environmentally friendly and healthier travel modes to and from work and school on a Wednesday, is now launching in cities across New Zealand.

Auckland and Christchurch schools will join the existing Tauranga and Tairāwhiti schools and businesses participating in the Wednesday Challenge when it launches for the year next month.

Director and founder Heidi Hughes said the growth in cities joining was a testament to the success of the challenge to date.

“We have always had a primary goal of 20% mode shift and over the past three years the challenge has continued to demonstrate its ability to encourage participants to opt for a better mode of travel than just jumping in a car by themselves.

“Last year over 850,000 journeys were logged in our web app from more than 13,000 participants. With the inclusion of Auckland and Christchurch in the challenge this year we are excited to see what our achievements will be.”

Twenty schools in Auckland and 20 in Christchurch would join existing participants on the challenge this year with other cities and towns interested.

“We ran a pilot in six Auckland schools in the last term of 2024 and achieved an average 22% reduction in single car usage, with two of the schools achieving a 33% and 38% reduction respectively. It’s encouraging to see how this challenge is able to shift the dial on mode usage.”

The challenge was founded by Hughes in 2022 to address road congestion and carbon emissions.

It encourages participants every Wednesday to opt to bike, bus, scooter, walk, run or carpool to work or school instead of taking a single occupancy car.

“This challenge is about doing something that’s good for the environment, helps reduce cars on the roads and helps improve health and mental wellbeing.

“There’s no denying the health and wellbeing benefits of exercise. Seeing kids bike, run, scooter and walk to school is great. Add to that the tangible reduction in congestion at the school gates and it’s easy to see why schools are loving the challenge.”

Statistics show that running for 15 minutes a day can help reduce depression by 26%, 70% of physically active people report better sleep, and mild exercise is enough to reduce anxiety, and depression, improve self-esteem and cognitive function.

Exercising on workdays can boost time management skills and daily completed workload by 72%.

Powering up the challenge in schools again this year is Mercury, who partners with the Wednesday Challenge to provide cash prizes and rewards to participating schools.

“We are so grateful for the support of our friends at Mercury. It adds a level of excitement and encouragement to school students and teachers and many of the winning schools use the prize money to fund much needed resources.”

For the business community in Tauranga and Tairāwhiti there’s also the incentive of prizes and rewards.

“Our partnership with Tauranga City Council to enable Tauranga businesses to participate is an important part of the challenge.

“We have some of the largest businesses in the city actively participating and they’re great advocates for the benefits of the challenge.

“Mercury and Craigs Investment Partners even have national teams in the challenge, determined to lead by example, engage their teams nationally and encourage other businesses to follow suit.”

Hughes said at the heart of the challenge was the collective power of individuals working together for greater good.

“Our individual actions are supercharged when applied collectively. The Wednesday Challenge is a catalyst for this. People really get it.

“They understand that this is an initiative by the people, for the people. They see that, as individuals, we can make a difference, have some fun, reap the benefits and lead by example.”

The Wednesday Challenge launches again Wednesday, February 26, and runs throughout the year.

Keen to find out more? Go to www.wednesdaychallenge.co.nz.