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Here, Ador Group through a various energy storage and cryogenic industry investments, expect potential for hydrogen mobility as the next step to electrification. Presently, EV drivers suffer from range anxiety. Hydrogen address that. Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV) essentially fill hydrogen at a filling station in a manner no different to filling LPG or petrol in a vehicle. Hydrogen is converted to electricity through on board fuel cells to charge the on-board batteries greatly enhancing the distance range of EVs.
“Future mobility is incredibly exciting for India. Imagine ten years from today cities will experience far less pollution and particulate matters in the air will drop allowing for children to go to school breathing clear air and providing them longer life expectancies. It’s a great time to be part of our industry and we certainly are excited about being able to do our bit for the betterment of India.”
With the advent of urbanization, affordable, efficient, safe and environmental-friendly mobility solutions are very significant for the growth of cities as they increase a city’s attractiveness for both businesses and citizens.
Tilak Raj Seth, Executive Vice President – Mobility Division, Siemens Limited, India, explains, “The Smart Cities Mission is a good step towards this vision, eg; metro lines are planned in more than 25 cities to be built in the next five years and intelligent traffic systems are deployed. Moreover, our vision for the future of mobility includes to integrate a city’s entire mobility network on a single platform and manage it in a holistic way.
“Therefore, Siemens Mobility offers a ‘Mobility Operating System’ (MOS), i.e., different modes of public transport, the traffic management system, expressways, tunnels, parking management are integrated and optimized by deploying data from various sources, e.g., information about weather, air pollution, or events. The traveller is provided with a multimodal journey planner app, which advises the best route for the fastest or cheapest journey including last-mile connectivity such as ride hailing, car or bike sharing. Everything, including payment across different transport operators, is facilitated through this one single app to ensure seamless point-to-point connectivity. Furthermore, we believe that vehicle fleets will be all electric with power from renewable sources in order to reduce the impact on the environment.”
So, what should India prioritize while choosing future mobility? While today, around one third of the Indian population lives in cities, this number will increase to over 50% by 2050 as people move from rural or suburban areas to cities. This urbanization mega trend poses several challenges for cities in the areas of congestion, safety and environment. As traffic density increases, the average speed in cities decreases, negatively impacting economic productivity and citizens’ quality of life. At the same time, road fatalities and air pollution increase. Therefore, Indian city planners should put a special focus on building public transport as well as road infrastructure as a basis for accommodating a rising number of people.
Furthermore, intelligent traffic systems need to be deployed to increase infrastructure productivity, improve safety for road users and reduce travel time, costs and energy consumption. These include adaptive urban traffic control systems, parking management, public transport prioritization, intermodal transport management, toll systems, tunnel and highway management. As next step, connected and autonomous vehicles can complement a city’s mobility ecosystem.
Facilitated by advancements in digital technologies, such as Big Data analytics or artificial intelligence, new and improved ways of managing and maintaining transport infrastructure are enabled. An example is Siemen’s trial in Hanoi, Vietnam. As traditional detection modes fail in chaotic, unpredictable traffic behaviour, the company have developed an AI-based video analytics algorithm, which analyzes video streams from standard CCTV cameras at an intersection. Based on this detection data, which is sent to a cloud-based traffic management center, the signal plans at the intersection are adjusted according to traffic demand.
The trial resulted in an increase of traffic volume throughput by 15%. Furthermore, the development of a MOS, a platform which integrates and manages a city’s entire mobility network, is a strong focus of Siemens’ activities, supported by a large team of data scientists and developers in Pune, India.
“A functioning multimodal and integrated transport system is critical for any nation. It directly impacts the nation’s environment, quality of life and economic growth and can enormously increase its attractiveness for businesses. Through advancements in automation, electrification and digitalization, we are committed to transform India’s mobility sector for greater sustainability, efficiency and reliability and strive towards our goal of creating more livable cities”, says Seth.