Georges Gallais

 Is there any rational justification for driving a 100-horsepower (75KW) one-ton petrol-powered saloon carrying a single 70Kg person for a 20-minute urban trip? Whereas a light, silent, urban and clean vehicle of 2KW can do the same job?

The potential impacts of satellite navigation services on urban congestion, road network saturation, energy and environment issues are the starting point of our project. The emerging multimodality paradigm represents a real shake-up to the traditional segmentation of the transport business: mass versus individual, public versus private. Information systems offer travelers a larger range of solutions: walking, roller skating, segway, biking, on-demand transport, taxis, buses, tramways, railway and private cars. As the ability to undertake personal travel is regared as an important indicator for quality of life, VU Log is developing services to accelerate this movement from uni-modal to multimodal traffic behavior.

VU Log is both an information system and a new mobility tool focusing on short distance trips (50% of the total trips in most European cities). It provides instantaneous and highly accurate information on the position and availability of small shared electric cars organized in fleets.

VU Log technology simplifies individual vehicle usage: pay-as-you-drive, no maintenance, no refueling. Moreover, having analyzed the numerous car sharing initiatives of the 90’s, VU Log software will take advantage of the Galileo Satellite Navigation System to tangibly improve our environment and enhance energy efficiency while increasing citizen mobility.

How it works?
People living and working in city centers or large and significant activity areas registered at VU Log service, just have to connect to our web services. They access the car using a smart card and then start their trip.

Background?
The background of VU Log partners lies in information and control technologies in combination with extensive experience gained in European research projects such as CyberCars (IST) & CyberMove (EESD). They belong to INRIA and Rainbow team of 13S in Sophia Antipolis. The feature of these projects was to bring together IT technologies experts, urban designers and city authorities in a user-oriented evaluation and experimentation program.

Project plan
VU Log is focusing on a small number of pilot projects in order to introduce these and confirm the environmental and energy impact of its technology and prepare for diffusion in coherence with the Galileo program.

Contact:
VU Log Inria Sophia Antipolis
Mr. Georges Gallais
2004, Route des Lucioles
F-06902 Sophia Antipolis
France
phone: +33 (0) 492 38 50 14
e-mail: gbgallais@vulog.info
www.vulog.com