The deliverable 2.5, Seamless eMobility system including user interface, was submitted by FourC, Powel, ATB, RAC Norway, Smart M Power, and IOTA Foundation in June 2020. The deliverable was indicated as confidential, however, the authors agreed to make it available publicly. The executive summary of the deliverable is available below and the full deliverable at the end for download:
“This report includes a description of a software solution that acknowledges and empowers electro-Mobility as a Service (eMaaS). It is the outcome of task T2.4, and constitutes the deliverable D2.5.
These days, travellers are being more encouraged and motivated into abandoning car ownership in favour of sustainable mobility services. Hence, the demand for an eMaaS solution that provides travellers with ready-to-hand access to nearby transport options, where they can evaluate, select, and possibly pay a trip.
EU/EEA promotes interoperable Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and issued EU Directive 2010/40/EU to accelerate the provision of multimodal travel information services, and Delegated Regulation 2017/1926 that defines types of multimodal travel information required from transport providers. An eMaaS solution must adhere to the regulations, and interact with existing solutions. Regulations and organisational structure of transport authorities in Norway and Ireland have been investigated, and existing transport and ITS service providers, in Trondheim and Limerick, surveyed. This is to help understand what data to expect, how to design for it, and where to find it, whether static or real-time.
A functional proof-of-concept eMaaS system has been developed. It includes a backend system, named FourC Total Traffic Control (FourC TTC). FourC TTC retrieves, stores, and provides transport data. It collects data from various data providers and makes it available in a normalized and standardized format. The TTC API delivers data as GeoJSON objects (RFC 7946), which allows developers to easily take the data output as a standardized object format and display it on a map. It is based on GraphQL, which allows for dynamic queries and reduces broadband requirements.
A demonstration end-user Android app has also been developed. It connects to the TTC backend and shows the mobility options that are available for the user near a chosen position on the map. Mobility objects on the map are interactive, and can show further information about the chosen object. Each mobility object is graded according to its environmental “friendliness”. The user can choose the types of mobility modes they would like to see, create location favorites, and “auto-jump” to the nearest favourite. As the mobility modes have very different payment schemes, the app will redirect the user to the mobility provider’s own app or webpage to reserve or order each type of mobility option.
Ideally and to conform to the task description, payment would have been done through IOTA distributed ledger technology, with IOTA digital assets. Since a full integration was not possible, instead, as a proof-of-concept, a digital asset payment system was developed, where users can book and pay for a multi-modal journey, offered by different transport providers, seamlessly in one step.
Finally, for integration with task T2.5 (for developing a platform for local trade of energy and flexibility), and since no actual chargers nor electric vehicles (EVs) have been deployed during the course of T2.4, a simulator has been created. It represents a proof-of-concept on how an API for accessing “temporarily available” EV batteries as flexibilities for use in Positive Energy Blocks (PEBs) could be achieved. Additionally, the development of the simulator gives some first insights into which data that has to be present in order to exploit EV batteries as temporary power sources. The simulator is used by Powel’s trading platform for the PEBs in Trondheim.”