Wiener Stadtwerke Annual Report 2012

10. Research and development
The Wiener Stadtwerke Group invests in research, technology
and innovation (in German: FTI) in order to be able to master
future challenges. To this end, the Group prepared its own FTI
strategy in 2011: A key element here is the ability to better
manage complex innovation issues which affect the entire
Wiener Stadtwerke Group.
The FTI strategy is seen as the key to actively developing
innovative and future-oriented business areas, to creating a
commercial environmental geared to the future and to making
it possible to launch advanced technologies and services.
Furthermore, the FTI strategy aims to support the Group in
achieving its commercial targets, to help identify future
opportunities and also ensures that the Wiener Stadtwerke is
always up-to-date with regard to the technologies and
processes that it uses. In order to better integrate its FTI
activities, a research coordinator has been appointed and,
from 2012, a Group-internal FTI fund has also been
established.
Besides the coordination and content-specific work associated
with research projects, another important milestone in 2012
was the signing of a cooperation agreement between Wiener
Stadtwerke and the Vienna University of Technology. The
purpose of the cooperation between the Group and the VUT is
to advance the necessary transformation process in the areas
of mobility and energy systems so as to be able to jointly
design and pursue inter-disciplinary projects. The first strategic
project involves designing a joint doctoral programme on
the issue of smart cities. This will take place during 2013. In the
winter semester 2013/14, up to ten doctoral students will work
on inter-disciplinary theses roughly covering the fields 'energy
systems of the future' and 'new mobility'.
The issue of integrated mobility is an important research focus
for Wiener Stadtwerke. It was for this reason that the Group
submitted the Vienna Model Region project 'eMobility on
demand' as the consortium leader of numerous Group-internal
and external partners in the hope of securing financing from
the Klima- und Energiefond (Climate and Energy Fund). Having
received funding support, this project has now been ongoing
since 2012.
The e-mobility on demand (eMoD) project aims to facilitate
the use of e-vehicles and establish charging stations at those
interfaces
• where they can replace commercial traffic which previously
relied on burning fossil fuels,
• where they guarantee mobility in every transport situation
in which walking, bike and public transport use will still not
be a viable alternative for citizens,
• and where e-vehicles, as part of an optimally integrated,
inter-modal trip chains, assume a beneficial supplementary
role in addition to the mainstay of urban mobility, namely
local public transport.
30 Annual Report 2012 | Consolidated Management Report
The use of subsidised e-vehicles will therefore be implemented
as a replacement for journeys which necessarily involve the use
of a car, and therefore primarily for
• commercial transport in vehicle fleets with an appropriate
use profile (financed by the Model Region and Klima.aktiv
funds)
• e-vehicles used for complementary transport options in the
multi-modal mix, such as e-taxis and e-carsharing
• commuters
• as well as e-buses on regular services operated by Wiener
Linien (2A and 3A).
In addition, Wiener Linien is also working, as a member of the
Austrian Mobile Power association and alongside other
Austrian energy providers and leading Austrian technology
companies in the fields of vehicle development, system
development, infrastructure and research, on an overall system
of electromobility. The declared objective of this association is
to make electromobility as user friendly as possible.
sMiLE
The research conducted into the issue of a mobility card led to
the submission of the SMILE project.
The SMILE research project, funded by the Climate and Energy
Fund, is developing and piloting a prototype for a multi-
modal, integrated, web-based information, reservation and
payment system (smart mobility platform) which intelligently
combines local public transport and other mobility options,
particularly e-mobility.
Key characteristics of this project are a uniform service design
without local or regional boundaries and intelligent customer
information as well as electronic reservation and payment
processes. The SMILE platform will be based on uniform
interfaces which allow other providers of mobility solutions
(e-carsharing, e-bike hire, car parking facilities, charging
stations, etc.) and other projects with similar objectives to be
easily integrated into this system.
At the heart of the project is the system design and all of the
associated facets, which are primarily being developed from
the user perspective. The design phase involves defining the
necessary requirements and detailed specifications which will
subsequently be translated into a functional prototype during
the development phase.
A trial period involving test users will then follow in selected
test areas. This will make charging infrastructure and e-vehicles
available at multi-modal mobility hubs which are functionally
integrated into the SMILE platform.
The cooperation between Wiener Stadtwerke, as the largest
urban mobility service provider, with Austrian Federal Railways
(ÖBB), as the largest national provider of mobility services, is
unique and offers the opportunity of establishing the basis for
a mobility platform covering all of Austria.
For more information about this project, please refer to the
project website at http://smile-einfachmobil.at