The transition to clean transportation is well under way as fleets work towards emissions-reduction goals and go beyond pilot programmes to deploy large numbers of electric vehicles. BetterFleet is a platform to help you manage what is a complex transition to electrification.
While initial pilots set important foundational knowledge, as fleets scale electric vehicle deployments, the complexity of planning and managing the operational realities of electric vehicle fleets becomes more pronounced.
Several challenges can arise while transitioning to electric vehicles, impacting service delivery, operational costs, and procurement decisions. These initial challenges may include choosing the right vehicles and chargers to meet the fleet’s needs, identifying which routes to electrify, predicting fleet performance, and utility costs.
BetterFleet assist with advanced fleet transition planning, which enables fleet operators to make informed decisions about electrifying their depots and significantly reduce the cost of hardware, installation, and operations.
The benefits and functions of advanced fleet planning include:
Providing insights to guide procurement
It makes sense to take a data-driven approach to determining the right amount of battery storage needed on board vehicles based on the range requirements of specific routes. An advanced fleet plan takes into account existing block schedule data to determine how vehicles must perform and how much time they must charge in.
This data also guides decisions on whether on-route fast charging infrastructure is needed or if plug-in depot charging is a better option for the fleet’s specific needs.
Prioritise the best routes to electrify now and in the future
With proper planning, you can identify how certain electric vehicles will perform in specific terrain and in different climate conditions. An advanced fleet transition plan takes variable vehicle performance and weather conditions into account to identify the best routes to electrify first, and the order of successive routes to electrify over time as technology continues to mature.
Identify the power required at your facility and determine infrastructure upgrades needed
By honing in on the true amount of power needed from a depot to support an electric bus fleet, advanced fleet planning helps identify energy needs moving forward so they can be communicated to the utility company as early as possible in the planning process to avoid delays and reduce costs.
Reduce and predict project costs
Advanced fleet planning incorporates your electricity rates, potential demand charges, and required utility infrastructure upgrades into a managed charging plan. Planning a managed approach to charging your fleet can reduce the costs associated with procuring hardware, utility infrastructure upgrades needed, and ongoing operational costs.
It also provides projected costs into the future and over the lifetime of the vehicles, which facilitates more efficient budgetary planning.
Rather than being static documents that only reflect the available data and technology at a given point in time, fleet transition plans can be living documents that evolve over time as technology and our operating environments evolve.
The reality is that schedules change, vehicle technology changes, electricity rates change, and transitions happen over time. As such, continuous planning is essential for mitigating the risks and challenges associated with transitioning to a BEB fleet, while making sure your vehicles are available when needed for service.
For more information, see BetterFleet.com.
