The Metropolitan City of Bari is the capital city of the Apulia region in Southern Italy. In the eCharge4Drivers project, the Metropolitan City of Bari is one of 10 demonstration areas across Europe and the pilot site is leaded by the Polytechnic University of Bari (POLIBA), with the participation of project partners ABB, Hubject and ICOOR. In this pilot site, new user-friendly charging stations from ABB are in demonstration. In addition, new enhanced services for the reservation of charging stations and for route planning are in demonstration to improve the driving and charging experience. An Incentive Management Platform is linked to the booking service to incentivise users to make a fair and ethical use of the charging infrastructure resource, avoiding making improper occupation of the charging spots.
ABB User-friendly charging station
ABB has installed AC (22kW) and DC (24kW) charging stations with new user-friendly screens and enhanced information at the University Campus in Bari. They are being tested with the participation of users from the community of the University Campus. The charging stations are operated by the Charge Point Operators (CPO) backend system of POLIBA. Enhanced information such as energy delivered, charge speed, charge cost, etc. are provided to the users via a mobile app.
Enhanced Route Planner
The enhanced route planner focuses on the offline planning of the EV trip including the charging stops according to the user profile and preferences, based on advanced energy consumption prediction models and algorithms. The route planner service is provided by ICOOR via a webtool which allows the user to plan a trip prioritising stops based on their preferences, inserting waypoints such as night, lunch or pass stop and selecting alternative charge points (CPs) and plug type. In this way, the user is able to plan a trip based on personal needs, enjoying points of interests like restaurants, hotels etc. while charging.
Recently, the demonstration of the service has been launched for the customers of the Apulia Region in the South of Italy.
How does it work?
Let’s take an example trip in the Apulia Region (see image below), with a total distance of about 400 km. This trip starts at 7 p.m. CET, with commercial EV having 200 km range of battery on average. This trip starts from Ugento (LE) with San Giovanni Rotondo (FG) as the final destination. In this case, the EV user requires to start and end the trip with the same State of Charge (SoC) battery level (> 50%). The route planner returns two possible route options (A and B, see Figure 2), including urban and extra-urban paths and stops, providing the following details: trip stop info with waypoint type (night, lunch etc.), CP name and address, connector type, start and end SoC, charging time.
Enhanced Booking Service
In Bari, the booking service is offered by the Polytechnic University of Bari as electromobility service provider connected to local CPOs through the Hubject eRoaming platform, which is one of the largest in Europe.
The booking service is interoperable, designed and developed to offer to users short term (e.g. < 30 min) and long term (e.g. the day ahead) reservation options, based on enhanced offline and real time information, including the presence of point of interest close to a CP, the real-time status of the CP and its parking spot, the real-time cost of a recharge etc. It is possible to book a charge point from a list of available/favourite CPs based on the specific travel needs. Using a mobile application, the user can book the recharge session and monitor in real time the energy and cost status of the recharge. In addition, good usage of the booking service can be rewarded according to the CPO/EMP policies to avoid unethical use of the charging stations and spots.
The booking service is currently in testing phase by means of an AC three-phase 22kW wallbox (see image below) by the CPO Eurolink Systems srl, an external Italian partner. The wallbox is installed and used at POLIBA premises.
Incentive Management Platform (IMP)
An incentive management platform has been designed and prepared to manage a dynamic system of rewards and penalties linked to the booking service use.
The idea is to create an IT platform connected with the booking service in order to incentivise users to make a fair use of the booked charging stations. The fair (or unfair) use of the booking service is regulated by the service provider and CPO according to specific positive (or negative) behaviors expected from the end users while using the reservation service. The IMP policy is based on the booking service terms of use and it implements specific “game rules” to establish if the user should receive a reward or penalty. The IMP is designed to be connected to the charging station booking service platform in Bari. The user of the booking service can join the IMP platform and be rewarded (or penalised) based on the game rules with a positive (or negative) score, called GreenPoint (GP), which can be used to redeem a charging or booking discount.
