A new vision of personal city transport related to the understanding of the needs of modern urbanization and respecting the green thinking is the goal of the new European project called „ESPRIT“. ESPRIT means Easily diStributed Personal RapId Transit and is a model of future car sharing in city centers and suburbia. The solution will be a roadtrains of electric vehicles. Coupling systems of the vehicles will help to redistribute them more effective according to the passenger’s needs. It is possible to connect up to 7 vehicles, which will be delivered by the service operator; anywhere they will be needed – any public transport stations.

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Coupling is similar to the trains – a combination of electro – mechanical locks. The biggest challenge was to prevent lateral oscillations. Connected vehicles can share charges; can use same power charging source and also share the command signal. Coordinating the shared command signal is critical for the project, because each vehicle has 2 electro motors (a front one and a rear one), which means that if 7 vehicles are connected together it is necessary to control 14 motors at once.

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Also a big challenge is to model a prediction for the future evolution and changes of the needs of the citizens for personal transport services. This prediction will help to plane the needed amount of the vehicles, their best distribution, choosing the best spots for redistribution of the vehicles, charging stations and their capacity.

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According to the developers the batteries can supply a 50 km range ride. The speed is up to 65 kms/h. Three pilot cities are included in the pilot project; in the UK, Spain and in France.

 

Source: Euronews