CTR staff (John Nelson, Jillian Anable, Richard Mounce) will work on ESPRIT : The Easily diStributed Personal RapId Transit project aims to develop a purpose-built, light weight L category electric vehicle that can be stacked together to gain space. Thanks to pioneering coupling systems, up to 8 ESPRIT vehicles can be nested together in a road train, 7 being towed, for an efficient redistribution of fleets and a smartly-balanced and cost efficient transport system. To prove the ESPRIT concept, the project will also work on a suite of modelling and simulation tools to predict, once ESPRIT vehicles are deployed, the economic, social and environmental benefits as well as key operating strategies.
Societal benefits
It is anticipated that this concept will encourage citizens to use conventional public transport and
carsharing solutions rather than their private vehicles leading to seamless intermodal transport, reduced congestion and significant reduction of noise and air pollution. As the key to the ESPRIT transport system is the ability to redistribute 8 vehicles at a time by a single operator, the project expects to demonstrate through simulation that it is possible to achieve a continuous 90% availability rate of vehicles across all stations (in last kilometre and one-way carsharing mode) using less manpower compared to current systems which have 50% of stations empty several times a day.
Project objectives:
• Produce the ESPRIT operation and business model estimation tool to be able to accurately predict the economic viability of deploying the ESPRIT transport system in a variety of different urban/suburban configurations.
• Develop the necessary technological components to equip the vehicle for single and roadtrain use
• Manufacture 3 fully functional demonstrator ESPRIT vehicles to perform a complete functional
validation of all sub-systems, including road testing, and be able to physically present the ESPRIT
transport system to end users
• Produce recommendations for development of regulations and standards enabling the use of ESPRIT vehicles driven like road trains by an operator.
• Produce a detailed roadmap for the first series of ESPRIT fleet deployment (with approx. 300 vehicles per fleet) in 3 European cities (Glasgow, Lyon and L’Hospitalet de LLobregat, near Barcelona).
More details on the project are available here:
ESPRIT_-_29-07-2015_-_DISS_-_Communication_kit_v7.pdf
Contact details:
CEA, Project Coordinator – Valéry Cervantès:
valery.cervantes@cea.fr
ARTTIC, Project Office – Hugo Hart:
hart@arttic.eu