The URBANIZED project, officially launched 1 January 2021, kicked off with the first General Assembly held online on 20 January 2021. All 9 project partners attended the event, including: Applus+ Idiada (project coordinator), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Vitesco Technologies, Alkè Electric Utility Vehicles (OEM), Hellenic Institute of Transport (CERTH-HIT), Bax & Company, the Belgian Post Group (BPOST), and the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA).

URBANIZED aims to achieve future proof urban-readiness by integrating flexibility and adaptability through modularity in the design of all-electric Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs), to cover the rapid growth and the changing nature of deliveries and on-demand urban freight transportation (UFT) services while reducing the number of necessary vehicles and dramatically improving last-mile delivery operations. URBANIZED will work and deliver innovations at 3 levels:

At a vehicle systems level: URBANIZED will contribute to solve current automotive manufacturing challenges related to the trade-offs between standardisation and customisation when developing modular vehicle architectures that can serve various user needs by reducing the cost of modularity in each fit-for-purpose application, thus being able to radically reduce production costs for both mainstream and niche applications.

At a vehicle level: URBANIZED will contribute to increase the market offer and uptake of high-performance, urban sized, zero-emission LCVs optimised for urban and suburban operations that will cover present and increasing future demand for these vehicles by offering superior solutions to the alternatives used today for equivalent missions.

At a fleet level: URBANIZED will solve the trade-off between ‘One size fits all’ and ‘Design for purpose’ approaches when operating mixed fleets of small commercial vehicles thanks to modular vehicle architectures and adaptable energy management systems designed to increase the usability experience while reducing fleet investments and operational costs.

Our kick-off event began with a presentation from lead partner Applus+ Idiada, in which the team highlighted our technical objectives of the project to achieve a 10% energy efficiency increase in our systems with an up to 25% lower cost and high safety standards. Through these objectives and our modular approach, we aim to reduce energy consumption on a fleet level by 12,8% and increase fleet efficiency by up to 81%.

As a project within the European Green Vehicle Initiative, Octavia Stepan joined from INEA, part of the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency. As our Project Officer overseeing project progress, she provided an overview of the organisation and initiative, supporting collaboration by offering to connect the URBANIZED coordinators with projects from the same Horizon 2020 call.

Together, the consortium looked ahead at their plans for URBANIZED, from vehicle development to workshops, trainings, and the observatory on urban freight transport. With many great ideas to future-proof cities with zero-emissions last-mile delivery options tailored to fleet managers’ needs, the URBANIZED team is looking forward to a rewarding collaboration that achieves project targets with high impact.