Electric mobility meets public transport – the Munich City Utilities (Stadtwerke München, SWM) achieve ambitious goals in partnership with tech company PI Labs

To ward off the potentially devastating effects of climate change, the Federal Government, States, and municipalities of Germany above all invest in electric mobility. Even with public transportation making up a relatively small share of total emissions when compared to motorised individual transport, cities and municipalities want to actively reduce CO₂ emissions in this segment as well, establishing comprehensive electric mobility solutions. The Munich City Utilities are setting an example of how a successful transformation towards becoming a CO2-neutral mobility provider might look. An elaborate project has been set up, striving to provide regular bus transport services with zero local emissions until 2030, under the auspices of the Munich Verkehrsbetriebe (MVG). The ambitious project should above all be realised with the comprehensive use of electric buses and the construction of a new bus depot with a modern charging infrastructure.

One special challenge of the project revolves around the requisite digital connection of the fleet. To ensure seamless bus operations with electric buses, relevant vehicle data must be collected with installed sensors to then be processed and made available in a cloud solution. Data must be both combined and used across makes and models. This particularly concerns the registration of up-to-date battery statuses of individual operational vehicles – indispensable for efficient fleet management. These data lay the foundation for controlling charging operations in the new depot.

Efficient and lossless data transmissions to the cloud are guaranteed by already preparing the collected data for further processing in the vehicle. As a project partner, Munich-based PI Labs GmbH delivers both the necessary expertise as well as the digitalisation experts and proprietary hardware and software products. This is how PI Labs delivers a bespoke, extendable, and scalable solution that meets the needs of the SWM. With PI Labs configuring the data preparation for processing, optimal alignment with the digitalisation solution is guaranteed.

"We are delighted to make a significant contribution to the mobility transition in public transport, with our products and long-standing expertise in the field of vehicle connectivity," explains Markus Jungermann, Managing Director of PI Labs GmbH.

The first electric buses should already be connected and integrated into the digital infrastructure of the Munich City Utilities in the summer of 2021.