UK and Korean partners have signed a technology research and development MOU to advance safety and efficiency in electric fleet applications.

The partners will evaluate opportunities for deploying smart city and smart grid enabled e-fleet and charger management platform

The co-operation brings together Cenex and Flexible Power Systems (FPS) from the UK with Korean organisations including Thallos, Innoca, KETI and KAATA (Korea Advanced Automotive Technology Association).

The partners will evaluate opportunities for deploying smart city and smart grid enabled e-fleet and charger management platforms alongside cutting edge in-vehicle safety systems in the commercial vehicle sectors in both the UK and Korea.

This activity is part of project SLICED (Smarter Logistics through In-Vehicle, City and Energy Data), a feasibility study funded by Innovate UK.

Cenex, a not-for-profit research organisation active in providing fleets and cities with net-zero transition support, will bring together a stakeholder user group to define customer led use cases which enhance logistic operations and the urban environment through improvements in data-driven decision-making.

South Korean partners will develop smart in-vehicle driver monitoring systems focused on providing driver warnings for accident prevention and feedback on driving efficiency.

Flexible Power Systems (FPS), a UK-based software company, will extend its e-fleet and charger management platform (FPS Operate) to incorporate emerging safety, smart city and grid energy optimisation services.

Benefits include optimised fleet operations whilst enabling cities to access data generated through logistics to improve city life. Practical examples of this include enabling data from vehicles to advise a city on road areas and junctions prone to risky driving behaviour, collisions and even the presence and severity of potholes. This enables cities to enhance decision-making, citizen engagement, safety and sustainability.

The collaboration will not only benefit fleets in the UK but will also create opportunities to engage with Korean customers and explore the potential for joint development and commercialisation of these technologies in South Korea.

Steve Carroll, Cenex’s head of research and technical services, said: “We are delighted to be working on this project examining how to improve data-driven insights to optimise fleet management insights as well as enabling on-vehicle generated data to be used more widely by cities to improve services and city life.”

Michael Ayres, managing director of FPS, said: “Extending our Operate platforms functionality into smart city, smart grid and safety analytics use cases is a natural next step for us in offering fleets an end-to-end e-fleet and charger management solution. This co-operation with Cenex and our Korean partners offers opportunities to both access technology and new market opportunities.”