India has a population of about 1.4 billion and is a large market with a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 8.7%*3 recorded in 2021. As its rapid economic growth continues, air pollution caused by traffic congestion, etc. has given rise to serious social problems, mainly in urban areas. In order to solve these problems, policies to promote the wide use of e-mobility (electric vehicles) and expansion of the metro network, both of which have a low environmental load, are being implemented. Furthermore, to promote the use of public transport such as the metro system, it is important to concurrently develop the transport infrastructure for the section (last mile) from the nearest station to the destination or from the point of departure to the nearest station.

However, the current last mile transportation, such as "auto-rickshaws" of three-wheeled vehicles running on natural gas and the e-mobility provides low convenience and reliability. Therefore, many people are using their own cars, taxis or ride-sharing service, etc., and directly moving from the riding point to the destination. The traffic methods with such low-density transportation have caused the serious traffic congestion and air pollution by the increase of traffic volume, and it has fallen into a downward spiral.

Under these circumstances, the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and the Transport Department, Government of NCT of Delhi in India exchanged letters of Intent (LOI) in December to carry out a demonstration project, which is called International Demonstration Project on Japan's Energy Efficiency Technologies*4, on an IT operation support system for e-mobility (electric vehicles) with the aim of improving passenger's convenience and transportation efficiency in last mile transportation. Afterwards, Panasonic Holdings Corporation (Panasonic HD), a subsidized company that is responsible for implementing the project, and ETO Motors Private Limited (ETO Motors), a local cooperating company that manufactures and operates e-mobility vehicles, have concluded a project agreement (PA) (see Fig. 2).

Subsequently, Panasonic HD and ETO Motors launched a demonstration project for the IT operation support system (hereinafter "the system") for e-mobility in last mile transportation in an area around the Kalkaji Mandir metro station.

In this project, Panasonic HD and ETO Motors will jointly introduce the system to e-mobility services for last mile transportation between the point of departure, the Kalkaji Mandir metro station and the destination. The project aims to enhance both passenger's convenience and transportation efficiency to increase the number of e-mobility users by introducing the IT operation support system to the e-mobility between point of departure, Kalkaji Mandir metro station and destination so it should result in improving traffic congestion and reducing GHG emissions*5 (see Fig. 1).

[Implementation scheme of the demonstration project]
Subsidized company: Panasonic Holdings Corporation
Local cooperating company: ETO Motors Private Limited
Implementation location: Area around the Kalkaji Mandir metro station in Delhi

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Panasonic Corporation published this content on 05 January 2023 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 05 January 2023 01:17:03 UTC.