Fujitsu Limited and Global Mobility Services, Inc., a venture company providing mobility services, have announced that they will commence field testing to expand services in the Republic of the Philippines so as to increase the prevalence of electric tricycles (a three-wheel taxi) that use ICT.
GMS has already conducted a trial in Metro Manila that ran from September 2014 through January 2015 using electric tricycles with proprietary sensing technologies and ICT, such as remote vehicle-control systems, fare-authentication systems, and anti-theft systems. The company plans to begin actual services the second quarter of the calendar year.
Fujitsu will be working with GMS to connect their system to the FUJITSU Intelligent Society Solution SPATIOWL(2), for a field trial of additional services in Metro Manila that will begin in late 2015. These services will include a feature for estimating the available driving range based on the battery reserves and power-consumption profile, a service showing the routes to charging stations, and a service that plans routes to consume the least amount of power. Following the trials, these functions will be added to the service that GMS is launching in the second quarter, and will be put into operation in the Philippines in fiscal 2016.
This collaboration between GMS and Fujitsu will support more widespread use of electric tricycles in the Philippines and contribute to an improved environment and convenience. The companies are considering services in other Southeast Asian countries and China as the market for electric vehicles is expected to expand.
How the GMS Platform System and SPATIOWL work together
The more than 3.5 million gasoline-powered tricycles in the Philippines are a fixture of the country’s everyday life. But as the air-pollution problem worsens, the government of the Philippines is moving to introduce 100,000 electric tricycles, which produce no exhaust gases. Also, as electric vehicles take hold in other Southeast Asian nations, opportunities will grow throughout the region.
But because most tricycle operators in the Philippines have low incomes, they can neither afford to buy an electric tricycle outright nor pass a credit check. GMS seeks to work around this problem by lending vehicles in the Philippines and providing electric vehicle services without requiring credit checks.
GMS developed Mobility-Cloud Connecting System, which enables remote vehicle control, and conducted a trial of mobility services that can track a vehicle’s current location and disable a vehicle if usage-fee payments fall into arrears. The trial, which took place in Metro Manila, the capital area of the Philippines, ran from September 2014 through January 2015. Since then, GMS reached an agreement with one of the Philippines’ leading infrastructure companies, the Tricycle Operators and Drivers Association (TODA), and Quezon City, the country’s most populous urban area, to lead the large-scale deployment of electric vehicles equipped with this service, based upon their evaluation. Business is set to commence in the second quarter.
For more information, visit fujitsu.com
