Smart City Logistik Erfurt (SCL): ICT-support for managing fully electric vehicles in the domain of inner city freight traffic

Until the year 2020, Germany has established a national development plan with the goal to push one million fully electric vehicles into use. Part of the plan is to establish a number of federally funded research projects which investigate and tackle domain specific problems, e.g. the limited driving range of electric cars. Freight traffic is especially hampered by those range restrictions. The Smart City Logistik (SCL) project strives for a practical and short term solution to this problem in the concrete context set by the city of Erfurt, Germany. The focus is on ICT-support for currently available, small and medium sized, fully electric vehicles that provide for the “last mile” in freight handling. The idea is to transfer the goods from large trucks with traditional gasoline-driven engines to smaller sized electric transporters, to support this fleet with an integrated online interface to usual logistics systems, and to estimate and manage each individual vehicle's range, itinerary and route with a highly personalized in-car client. This paper provides an overview of ongoing work, as well as a look at specific concepts and structures in the project's layout.