The upcoming ITS World Congress will take place in Suzhou, China, from 16 to 20 October. With the theme “Driving Towards Intelligent Society – Quality of Life”, this 29th edition is the ideal platform for the SOLUTIONSplus project to showcase its innovative low-carbon solutions aimed at enhancing urban mobility and improving the quality of life in large urban areas around the world to an international audience of mobility experts.
SOLUTIONSplus will take centre stage in Special Interest Session (SIS) 13 ‘Novel Electric Micromobility and Mobility as a Service’ on Tuesday 18 October 2023. Organised and moderated by ERTICO Senior Manager John Paddington, the session will shed light on the infrastructure considerations for smaller vehicles. These types of vehicles are often overlooked in discussions on electric vehicles charging, which often focus on buses, cars, and trucks. Four ERTICO partners will take part in the session: Ralf Willenbrock (T-Systems), Lisa Spellmann (SAE International) will discuss the policy needs, particularly around gender and delivery drivers, Geli Latsa (ICCS) will consider user acceptance and benefits, and James Bullen (Transport for West Midlands) will provide a UK perspective focused on safety of women travellers. Su Song from the World Resources Institute will provide a Chinese perspective, providing a deep dive into how Beijing is focused on the supply side of sustainable travel linked to health and carbon credits.
Many of the innovations deployed by the SOLUTIONSplus project in its ten demonstration cities around the world are smaller electric vehicles. These include e-bikes in Kigali and Dar es Salaam, e-scooters in Hamburg, e-cargo bikes in Quito and Montevideo, e-tuk tuks in Dar es Salaam, e-mopeds in Hanoi, and e-3-wheelers Kathmandu. In the context of climate change, SOLUTIONSplus demonstrates how these novel electric vehicles play a key role in the shift to low carbon mobility and help achieve global sustainability and climate objectives, through the development, remodelling and retrofitting of such vehicles.
The project facilitates the integration of clean urban mobility solutions by establishing reference models to assist cities in implementing sustainable electric mobility solutions, and by supporting their integration into local, national, and global policy. The session at the ITS Word Congress will also examine the need for policy, standardisation and regulation for smaller electric vehicles, considering their diverse characteristics, and will emphasise the importance of incorporating micromobility in planning initiatives to maximise its benefits for more sustainable transport.
“The aim of SOLUTIONSplus is to accelerate the uptake of innovative micromobility products and services. Discussing these solutions at the ITS World Congress provides a huge opportunity for replicability and scaling, creating impact in China, Asia and the world,” says John Paddington.
In addition, SIS13 will explore how electric micromobility can support Mobility as a Service (MaaS), which is a fundamental element of the SOLUTIONSplus demonstration sites and its capacity-building activities, which include a free online course on MaaS co-organised by ERTICO. John Paddington will also moderate an Executive Session, ES 11, on Friday 20 October, which will focus on MaaS and discuss more specifically uniform ticketing in MaaS, driving forward active discussions on this important topic to enhance mobility services for the benefit of all.
In Technical Session TS 04 on Monday 16 October, Dr Li Wan will present a paper titled ‘SOLUTIONSplus – Boosting the Electrification of Public Transport by 5(6)G Enabled Carbon Credits’.
Find out more about the ITS World Congress in Suzhou and discover the programme on the official website of the Congress.
The SOLUTIONSplus project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 875041.
