The massive urbanization of the world calls for rethinking the development of territories, in order to make it more harmonious with the essential activities of our daily lives, respecting existing resources. It is necessary to provide access to mobility for all because it is essential for our growth, allowing us access to health, training and employment as well as cultural and leisure activities. We need to provide solutions to adapt to the real needs of territories and respect their identities, while encouraging frugal energy consumption :
- complementary fuels depending on the local community’s energy mix (electricity, hydrogen, LNG/CNG) and uses by customers (distances, regularity, territorial coverage),
- complementary solutions depending on the existing infrastructure and the resources available to the community: mass transit, shared transport solutions, soft mobility.
Today, new technologies are increasing the range of possibilities, with new forms of mobility such as on-demand services (e.g. Uber), home-work carpooling (e.g. WayzUp), car sharing (e.g. Citiz), self-service vehicle renting (e.g. Cityscoot), micro public-transit (e.g. Uberpool), instant delivery platforms (e.g. Stuart) and multi-modal planners (e.g. Citymapper). For these new mobility services, the challenge now is to increase the mobility offer in peri-urban areas, to supplement regular mass transit services.
As leader of the energy revolution, ENGIE is positioned as a key player in mobility and transport, offering an extensive range of cleaner mobility solutions that are transforming the use of energy. Alternative fuels, smart electric vehicle charging stations, hydrogen filling stations, smart traffic and parking management, and digital information systems in public transit networks are all solutions that will allow people to live in places where the air is more breathable, the streets are less noisy, traffic flows and travel is simplified.
ENGIE is committed to making mobility:
- More accessible and more inclusive: the Group has been involved in a number of major infrastructure projects at national level, such as the electrification of the TGV high-speed rail line between Tours and Bordeaux in France, the electrification of the future regional express line in Dakar, Senegal, and the high-speed rail line between Kenitra and Tangier in Morocco, and it supplies the majority of large cities in France with on-board systems for running bus and/or tram fleet operation and passenger information as well as connectivity solutions for trains and buses.
- Cleaner: the Group is setting up refueling infrastructures for natural gas for vehicles (NGV and bio-NGV) throughout Europe, as well as electric charging and hydrogen refueling networks.
- More connected and better shared: ENGIE is developing new forms of mobility with services such as car sharing and smart parking, in line with the ITS (Intelligent Transport System) initiative which it is successfully rolling out in Brazil.
ENGIE is transforming to encourage initiatives and local innovations that will achieve greener mobility.
In 2016, ENGIE decided to implement a geographical organization that will enable the Group to propose offers that are as close as possible to its customers’ expectations.
As a result, the projects that have taken shape in different parts of the world vary greatly, contributing to the transformation of the ENGIE Group in its effort to promote energy transition:
- In Chile and Mexico, ENGIE has created ENGIE Factory to develop new offers for the region in start-up mode. One of these, MuvSmart, is a range of services based on electric mobility providing services in parcel delivery and car sharing.
- In France, ENGIE’s Elec’Car offer ensures a supply of green electricity for their homes at half-price at night for private owners of electric vehicles.
- In France, the Sigma team at Inéo has developed the Cl’Ease offer, a solution combining car sharing and carpooling to help increase the density of the transport offer in Meurthe et Moselle, in the east of France.
- In Chile, our teams are working with the Santiago transit operator to create a pilot electric bus for the city, making it possible to assess the impact of converting the fleet to cleaner fuels.
- In the United Kingdom, the Green Mobility team has worked in conjunction with a number of cities to develop Green Mobility Hubs, which are multi-service parking lots with refueling facilities for several alternative fuels (electricity, hydrogen, natural gas for vehicles), alternative mobility offers (a ride-sharing lot) and access to mass transit networks.
- In Taiwan, ENGIE New Ventures, the Group’s venture capital fund dedicated to investing in innovative start-ups, has invested in Gogoro, a Taiwanese start-up producing electric scooters which is providing e-mobility solutions thanks to its smart electric 125cc scooters (Smartscooters) equipped with swappable lithium batteries alongside a public network of battery exchange stations (Gogoro Energy Network). Gogoro scooters are used by Coup, a French self-service eScooter scheme, for scooter-sharing.
- In Austria, EVBox electric charging stations have been installed and a shared electric BMW has been made available for employees in the parking lot of ENGIE Austria.
You can find out more about our solutions for making mobility more fluid, clean and economical… or how ENGIE is working today to build the city of tomorrow in a series of articles and interviews in our special dossier on mobility.