Visio.M: Mobility Services as an Enabler of Electric Mobility

Initial Situation

Over the last years, electric mobility began to proliferate and started to reach the general consumer market. Major car manufacturers invested in the technology and introduced their own electric vehicles, following the leading example of the MUTE project of Technische Universität München. However, electric mobility still faces a number of hurdles that prevents it from becoming the major platform for individual mobility. To name a few examples, the pricing of electric vehicles remains in the premium segment of the market, and although electric mobility provides advantages like ecological superiority and reduced noise pollution, it also creates new uncertainties for consumers, like the range of the battery. Additionally, the ICT of current electric (and combustion-based) vehicles remains in its infancy, lacking behind advancements in desktop and mobile computing. As automotive development cycles are much longer than its ICT counterparts, technologies and systems are often already outdated when they come to market.

Project Aim

The goal of Visio.M was to develop an electric vehicle with the focus on efficiency, safety, and affordability to overcome existing technical shortcomings and make electric mobility accessible to the general public; as well as to create state-of-the-art technologies to improve the state of automotive ICT. The chair for information systems contributed to this project through

the development of a flexible platform for value-added services,
the creation of innovative automotive services that support electric mobility,
a unified, safety-focused interaction model for all services of the platform,
as well as the exploration of holistic concepts for the urban mobility of the future.

Realization

The flexible platform for value-added services was developed in Java using the bus metaphor, in accordance to the OSGi reference specification, and was thus coined “Automotive Service Bus”. It enabled the dynamic adaptation of deployed services and allowed all services to distribute and use all available information in a bus-like manner. This foundation facilitated the creation of innovative services on top of the Automotive Service Bus.

The implemented automotive services focused on addressing the biggest needs of electric mobility. As such, part of the services addressed the common battery problem of electric vehicles and enabled energy-efficient routing and intuitive visualizations of the remaining battery range. Other services were concerned with innovative concepts for urban mobility and provided access to the re-implemented ride sharing platform TUMitfahrer, or helped to improve car sharing scenarios through concepts like personalization. An intelligent recommender mediated the amount of information reaching the driver, suggested nearby attractions and helped to find parking spaces.

For the presentation of the services, a unified, fully touch- and gesture-based user interface and interaction model was developed. The consistent display of all services aimed to create a familiarity for the driver that reduced distraction and allowed them to focus on the currently most relevant piece of information. The gesture-based interaction model enabled drivers to safely interact with the system.

Value

Visio.M as a whole leads the way to mass market electric mobility. The explored ICT artifacts support this (in particular the developed services and mobility concepts), as they exemplify ways to overcome current hurdles of electric mobility in terms of pricing, efficiency, range and other factors. The Automotive Service Bus and its user interaction model advance the state of in-vehicle systems, as they facilitate the development of a dynamic, thriving eco system of automotive services without compromising on driver safety.

The ride sharing platform TUMitfahrer, as a new concept for urban mobility, will be further developed and opened up to the general public. It will enable increased flexibility for individual mobility and has the potential to reduce inner-city traffic considerably and sustainably.

For future research and industrial adoption, the Automotive Service Bus, as well as the created prototypical services will be provided as open source projects.

Stakeholder

Contact

Dr. Michael Schermann
Christopher Kohl, M.Sc.
Thomas Köhn, M.Sc.