Public Funding for Route Monkey Limited

FreightShare Lab (FSL) aims to demonstrate how strategic data and asset sharing between multiple road and rail carriers and shippers can reduce empty running and under-utilisation of freight vehicles. FSL consortium partners Route Monkey, Transport Systems Catapult, Heriot Watt and Road Transport Media will develop an open data software platform for the optimisation and co-ordination of shared assets. The platform will act as a strategic planning tool; integrating job and vehicle data from shippers, fleets and carriers. The 30 month project aims to provide real-world validation of a previous feasibility study conducted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in 2016. The WBC research estimated that asset sharing could deliver a 20% reduction in fleet CO2 emissions from road transport. Through modelling and consultation, the project will tackle the technical and commercial complexity of multiple organisations seeking operational excellence whilst retaining competitive advantage. It will also undertake a live demonstration of data and asset sharing.

Dynamic and Multi-Modal Passenger Transport Service (DAMPTS) DAMPTS is an intelligent mobility service for staff and students of Edinburgh University. The project will integrate shared on-demand transport solutions (taxi, shuttle bus etc) with existing public transport solutions (bus, train, tram) to provide a multi modal, low carbon, low cost, timely service between key campus locations. Using algorithms, ticketing and mobile technology the project will optimise travel for students and staff between university campuses in Edinburgh. Students and staff will access this service via a mobile app, connecting them to other user journeys to enable ride share, which will in turn reduce the number of overall vehicle journeys, improve air quality, cut emissions and minimise costs. Demand for transport services around the University is very peaky, and changes each term depending on the current timetable. In a regulated industry, timetabled public transport is not able to meet the fluctuating demand. This project will seek to provide a real time demand based service, that will promote an asset light digital solution. In conjunction with Edinburgh University and the Living Lab, DAMPTS is supported by Route Monkey’s optimised multi modal journey planner that will identify the quickest, cheapest, lowest carbon travel options as well as match users for ride sharing. Users will be able to confirm their choice of travel, agree the price and book journeys in real time using ESP’s ticketing and booking. The on-demand transport is provided by Capital Taxis, and Urban Foresight will be providing expertise in the development of the business case development and innovative sustainable business models. The truly innovative aspects of this project is that there will be flexible pricing for flexible transport, according to demand. The user enters their requirements and immediately receives a price and timings, along with a comparison to available public transport and/or active travel. Our solution can incorporate new additional modes of transport. For example when the City of Edinburgh launches public electric bicycle hire, it can easily be incorporated into the service. DAMPTS will highlight low carbon journeys and help to alleviate the challenges of urban living. This project will provide a blue print for multi-modal dynamic passenger services using algorithms and mobile technology that can be scaled up globally to provide multi location/campus on-demand mobility solutions.

‘Collaborative and AdaPtive Integrated Transport Across Land and Sea’ (CAPITALS) is a 2 year project that brings together 15 organisations and stakeholders covering the land and sea logistics chain. The project will develop novel multi-modal transport solutions for seamless movement of freight and people across transport modes (sea, road and rail). The project specifically addresses congestion and delays around ports and their hinterlands resulting the growing numbers and sizes of vessels, lorries and rail wagons. As an island nation, with more than 95% of imports and exports going by sea, the UK economy is critically dependent on shipping and inland connections. Using pioneering techniques and advanced algorithms to exploit maritime, road, rail, local authority and other data, CAPITALS will develop user-centred applications and services to better synchronise shipping, vehicle and rail movements to achieve greater capacity and efficiency from existing infrastructure. CAPITALS solutions will initially be trialled in Liverpool and Humber to validate the benefits, and then define a roadmap for national and international scale-up.

Nowadays, the number of electric vehicles used in fleets to deliver chilled and frozen goods is low due to limited daily mileage as compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. In fact, the electrical batteries need to provide energy for traction, cabin conditioning, and refrigeration of the container. With this project, Sunamp, Paneltex, Route Monkey and LowCVP aim to significantly increase the adoption of electric chilled and refrigerated vehicles for short delivery of frozen goods, by: 1) the integration of compact thermal stores to decouple the energy required for traction from that required for thermal loads; 2) the integration of real time measurements into software to optimise the route of each vehicle of the fleet, to maximise the benefits for the distributor. Major benefits are: 1) to achieve daily range comparable to diesel vehicles; 2) drastic reduction of local CO2 and other pollutants emissions by removing thousands of commercial ICE vehicles in cities; 3) increase of night deliveries because of low noise of these vehicles; 4) access for the distributor to ULEZ in cities; 5) improved confort for drivers.

‘Pick&Mix’ will be a mobility service for 16-25 year olds created by young people, for young people. It will be designed by a team of volunteers selected from the 620,000 members of Young Scot (the Scottish youth information & citizenship charity) in collaboration with designers, user experience experts, technology services companies, behavioural experts and the public sector. Pick&Mix will reduce the need or desire for car ownership. Imagine a 19 year old using the Pick&Mix app, ‘Mobility Insight Tool’ or webchat and being shown how integrated options (e.g. car club + bus + walk) are perfect for his lifestyle. His Young Scot card becomes his bus pass, car club token and reward card. Multi-modal, end-to-end journeys will thus be enabled and enhanced within this 24-month project. The design and functions of the service will be guided by the young participants to ensure it fits with the true needs of users. The project has the potential for a strong commercial return and options will be developed to deliver a sustainable business model. The project will model the potential impacts of the service and explore the opportunities for creating similar services targeted at alternative user segments.

MaaS Optimiser: Our novel idea is for a smart-device based "Mobility Advisor" that will use a combination of cognitive computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning and optimisation algorithms, game-play mechanisms and social interaction to help (a) people move optimally from door to door (b) businesses to move freight optimally door to door, anywhere on the planet.

To develop a novel,scalable, online vehicle-routing system for the fleet market and a software system for handling a wide range of non-standard fleet-related logistics tasks incorporating recent developments in multi-criterion and scalable optimisation.

By anticipating local energy consumption and introducing micro-generation and storage systems, including stationary battery storage and electric vehicles, this project seeks to create a fully integrated local energy system of individual and aggregated sites. The project will use smart algorithms to optimise local energy sources and energy demand, through appropriately sizing the assets then managing them effectively. Sizing of the stationary battery systems to manage the critical factors for each local grid will ensure a maximised ROI to the system and optimise the use of low carbon energy supply, whether that be within the local system or available through the wider grid network. By optimising energy storage the project will also quantify carbon savings associated with load shifting/demand response. Initially aimed at commercial customers, the project will explore the impact and benefits of new technologies including Plug in Vehicles and the electrification of heat. The consortium members will contribute significant prior knowledge and when combined in our project, the enhanced solution will be commercially viable and available for our target B2B customers in 2015.