New electric vehicles in Greek smart city of Trikala

The Greek city of Trikala – with a population of about 80,000 inhabitants and located in northwestern Thessaly - has been recognized as one of the 21 smartest cities in the world in 2011 (https://www.intelligentcommunity.org/trikala) and Greece’s first digital city.

Over the last few years, the municipality of Trikala has equipped its citizens with an app to report any disruption of public services directly to the municipality and implemented driverless buses. Thanks to the participation of several European co-funded projects and with the help of the European Commission and two Greek IT companies, Trikala has also become a model for urban and digital innovation.

The EU co-funded project ELVITEN (Electrified L-category Vehicles Integrated into Transport and Electricity Networks) aims to show citizens the environmental benefits of driving EVs in urban areas and to encourage their use in private transport and daily urban deliveries. Trikala is one of six cities participating in the project, along with Berlin, Málaga, Bari, Genoa and Rome. As part of this project, ten light EVs (five tricycles and five quadricycles) will be deployed in Trikala. 

A testing phase started in the last quarter of 2018 and will be operational for one year. During this period, the vehicles will circulate free of charge in the smart city with three-wheel vehicles made available to courier companies and delivery services, and the four-wheel EV's available for interested citizens to try them out around the city.

Special tracking equipment on the vehicles will collect data that will be assessed by project partners and used to elaborate guidelines and business models for service providers and vehicle manufacturers.

Source: Story first published by ELVITEN project