Echosmile: innovation for cross-border urban mobility
On-demand, autonomous group shuttle service
TheOffice de Promotion des Industries et des Technologies (OPI ) and Archamps Technopole are launching echosmile, an urban mobility project featuring collective, autonomous, on-demand shuttles. The ultimate aim is to offer a cross-border link between Switzerland and France within the next few years.
The Interreg France-Switzerland European territorial cooperation program has just given the go-ahead for funding for echosmile, an innovative collective mobility project to study and develop an autonomous on-demand shuttle service at the Plan-les-Ouates and Archamps Technopole sites. Supported by the European Union, the Swiss Confederation and the Canton of Geneva, the project will start in September 2018 and run until August 2021.
A research method based on open and disruptive innovation
The various stages of the project will enable us to assess user needs, the technical quality of the service and its acceptance, as well as to participate in the evolution of regulations concerning autonomous mobility. Based on a research method advocating open and disruptive innovation, the echosmile project will include users in real-life conditions, in a co-creation process .
"In order to support Geneva's industry efficiently, we need to abolish borders. Echosmile stimulates collaboration between Genevan and French companies, and has unlimited outreach potential, given the central place of the Franco-Swiss territory of Greater Geneva in European territorial exchanges", emphasizes Frédéric Dreyer, Director of the OPI.
The echosmile consortium, steered jointly by OPI and Archamps Technopole, is made up of companies and organizations offering high-level expertise in Switzerland and neighboring France. TPG and CarPostal France will be working on transport and user services; Geneva-based consultancy CITEC on mobility issues; BestMile on the management of a fleet of autonomous vehicles; HEG on usage analyses and techno-economic studies; IBM, which markets the Watson artificial intelligence platform, on user interaction technologies, as well as FTI (Fondation pour les Terrains Industriels) and Centrale Mobilité (ZIPLO). It will be closely monitored by the authorities of the communes of Plan-les-Ouates and Archamps, who will provide the vision and needs of the public authorities in this context, as well as by the cantonal authorities, including the Direction Générale des Transports (DGT).
A major step towards intelligent, sustainable urban mobility
Echosmile aims to understand how this technological potential could meet a need for mobility in an intelligent and sustainable way. Intelligent, because it must respond effectively to user needs. Sustainable, because it will rely on the use of low-emission vehicles. In addition to electric propulsion, this means promoting shared mobility as an alternative to personal vehicles.
More than 100,000 cross-border commuters worked in the canton of Geneva in 2018. Bardonnex customs is the busiest in Europe, with daily traffic of over 43,000 vehicles on weekdays. It links the two echosmile application areas: Archamps Technopole and the Zone Industrielle de Plan-les-Ouates.
Located in Haute-Savoie in the immediate vicinity of Switzerland and the Canton of Geneva, Archamps Technopole is home to almost 170 companies and 1,600 employees on a 50-hectare site. In constant development, the technopole has 20 hectares available for extension. In Switzerland, the ZIPLO will provide over 10,000 jobs beyond 2020, including some 6,000 cross-border commuters. All this makes the area a place of excellence for the development of tomorrow's urban mobility.
Source: OPI CP
