Smart mobility solution to deliver sustainable transportation access

Japan's population is shrinking and this impacts transport networks which were built to service more users than today. Some transportation systems in towns do not work as before. To solve these issues in Japan, ENEOS is looking for a practical and intelligent solution to deliver sustainable access to transportation, especially for electric vehicle (EV) buses, for both urban and rural citizens.

Currently, citizens or public commuters travel from one point to another using regular community buses. However, the community bus services are limited due to decreasing demand from citizens. There are currently ride-sharing and on-demand buses solution on-trial but it will take time to determine the results.   

• Fundamental functions addressing the basic needs of each target end-user groups will be enough to get started for deployment in Japan.
• Technology owners are welcome to consider the problem as a whole and provide a technology proposal that may address the basic requirements of previously identified users of the technology. Examples of solutions:
  • Shared vehicle for passengers and cargo
  • On-demand type of bus
  • Ride-sharing
• The technology owner is to propose the length of data collection (assuming there is no data available), deployment time necessary, as well as the evaluation metrics to gauge the performance of the technology. This is to allow ENEOS to better identify the appropriate region in Japan where the technology can be meaningfully deployed for trial.
• As vehicular/road/transport safety/regulatory requirements depend on the region, this could be consulted at a later date once the region for test-bedding of the technology is identified, after the solution is shortlisted.
• The technology owner is expected to possess a certain level of the core technology that could be applied to quickly scale and develop a lean product in this problem domain. Thus, leveraging his/her background IP to co-create foreground IPs with ENEOS leading to a holistic functional end-product (proof-of-concept -> proof-of-value).
• Expected Technology Readiness (TRL) Level: 3
• The intended administrators for this solution after it has developed are ENEOS partner company (subcontractor) partnering the bus operating companies targeting the public commuter as end-user. 
• Geographical use for this solution: Mainly for Japan at first.

• The project is intended to be first commercialised (after demonstration) in Japan, after which there could be an exploration of deployment in countries facing similar population and mobility constraints in urban and rural context.
• New convenient and efficient transportation for citizens and cost-saving of operations.

• 6 months to 1 year

Further Enquiries

• For specific enquiries on the challenge statement, please contact here 
• For any general enquiries, please contact here