The digital Smart Fleet Management (SFM) solution collects route data of electric buses and makes automatic and forward-looking control of these buses possible, which increases the reliability of the line service and the capacity of the network.
The SFM is an AI energy management system that collects data about consumption, route and performance and saves them in a cloud. The artificial intelligence (AI) permanently re-calculates the likely energy consumption of the buses in real time. In this way the operation of the IMC© buses can be automatically controlled in the vehicle and in the entire network – depending on the situation and forward-looking in accordance with the state of the vehicle and the traffic situation.
The SFM has two major advantages in the fleet operation: Firstly, it ensures high operational reliability because it is prevented that the line service is interrupted due to an empty battery on the route. The gentle charging also reduces the battery wear. Secondly, the charging infrastructure is optimally utilised and the capacity of the network is increased by up to 30 %.
In detail, the SFM comprises:
- learning of routes, consumption and charging times of a vehicle as a function of the day and the season
- learning the fleet (data cloud)
- minimal charging power, which reduces the requirements for charging and infrastructure
- predictive adaptation of charging power and consumption
- prioritised charging of the bus batteries
- high reliability of the buses during the operation
- Optimal utilisation of the network
Optimal Smart Fleet Management and thus optimal utilisation of the network is achieved by way of new traction technology. The Kiepe Fleet Management (KFM), which reduces the maintenance costs and predicts future maintenance and repair requirements, the intelligent Kiepe Traction Control (KTC) and the new Kiepe Traction Inverter (KTI) belong to the new generation of Kiepe Electric’s traction equipment for electrically operated vehicles. The Kiepe Traction Inverter, which has been developed for electric buses and electric utility vehicles, unites the power electronics for the traction and the charging of the battery in one system.