New shared e-mobility project launched

A new project has been launched which is set to deliver four shared electric mobility hubs in Dublin, Galway, Sligo and Donegal with each hub providing charging infrastructure, electric cars, e-bikes and e-cargo bikes for shared use.

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin, together with collaborators from the Atlantic Technological University (ATU), ESB and Enterprise Rent-A-Car, will lead the €1.35 million shared electric mobility project, for which funding of almost €850,000 has been awarded by the Government through the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).

Project ‘ROBUST’ will assess community adoption and hub usage patterns over a three-year trial period, testing the potential of shared e-mobility to decarbonise transport in Ireland.

From the trial, the project will present evidence on how such hubs can work in different parts of the country and inform national and international transport decarbonisation policies.

Brian Caulfield, professor in transportation at the centre for transport research in Trinity, who is leading the project, said: “This is a massively ambitious project that will for the first time provide us with evidence on how different parts of our country may adopt shared electric mobility.

“The ambition of the project is large, because the challenge is also large; by the end of the decade we need to decarbonise our transport sector by 50 per cent.

“It is by learning from pilots like those planned in our project that we can provide evidence on how investment in shared mobility can be part of the solution in reaching this 50 per cent reduction in emissions.”