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– Minapim by Hernan Valenzuela: Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) announced an operations management system to support service delivery that will allow the practical use of the Toyota e-Palette, a battery-powered electric vehicle for autonomous mobility as Application services – Autono / MaaS (autonomous-mobility) as a service) that will perform mobility services in the future.
In collaboration with a number of partners, it is also planning to operate the vehicles in Woven City, a fully connected prototype city, while aiming for commercial use in various areas and regions in early 2020. In announcing his goal of transitioning Toyota to a mobility company at CES in January 2018, President Akio Toyoda also announced the e-Palette as a symbol of mobility that goes beyond cars to provide customer service and new value .
The Toyota e-Palette, with automated steering functions, made its debut at the Tokyo Motor Show last year. It will provide a shuttle bus service for athletes and related teams in the Olympic and Paralympic villages of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which have been postponed until July next year.
The spread of COVID-19 last year changed the way we live our lives, creating more diverse mobility needs, which include transportation that allows for adequate distance between passengers and a future of transporting goods and services, rather than people. moving.
Shrinking and aging society will also produce a range of mobility problems, so communities will increasingly need new mobility services, such as the Toyota e-Palette and other Autono-MaaS options, to address these problems.
To meet expectations like these, Toyota aims to provide just-in-time mobility services that “go where needed, when needed and on time” and that provide the necessary services and goods when needed and so on Tempo. To this end, it developed an operations management system for e-Palette vehicles based on the ideology of the Toyota Production System (TPS).
This operations management system will be provided as new functions on the Toyota Mobility Services Platform (MSPF) * 2 and will consist of the Autonomous Mobility Management System (AMMS), for connecting vehicles and the e-Palette Task Assignment Platform ( e-TAP) to connect with people.
The system will reduce customer waiting times and relieve congestion to ensure that services offer security, peace of mind and comfort.
In order to achieve the best TPS-based just-in-time mobility service, AMMS is able to dispatch Toyota e-Palette vehicles when needed, where needed and in the required quantity.
The operating hours can be changed flexibly, with vehicles dispatched and returned automatically, according to the mobility needs in real time. When additional vehicles are introduced to a service, the intervals between vehicles are adjusted to ensure uniform spacing of services.
Abnormalities in the vehicles are also detected automatically and, if this happens, the vehicles are automatically returned to the warehouse and the replacement vehicles are immediately dispatched on the route to ensure the stability of the operation. In an emergency, vehicles can be stopped and put back into service remotely, with an extra level of safety management, to provide passengers with peace of mind.
In line with TPS’s Jidoka (human touch automation) approach, e-TAP was introduced as a visual management function. Viewing abnormalities in vehicles and workers allows a single person to manage multiple vehicles, instead of one person continuously monitoring a vehicle, which allows for operation with fewer workers.
Work instructions are automatically provided to workers required for the operation, including on-board operators and maintenance personnel. Task management, including delays and early loading, allows for shorter lead times for maintenance and the provision of high quality services, even with limited workers.
President Akio Toyoda introduced the mission to Produce Happiness for All “Creating Mobility for All” . One of the platforms for carrying out these actions is the Toyota e-Palette. With the addition of an operations management system, the evolved e-Palette will be improved and grow with the never ending and ever growing Woven City. “
Human-centered, Woven City is a prototype city for testing and developing technologies such as automated driving, MaaS, personal mobility, robotics, smart homes and artificial intelligence, with e-Palette vehicles planned to operate there.
Operating in a real-world environment where people live will provide a series of lessons through which the platform will continually evolve to enable services that provide customers with security, peace of mind and comfort. In the future, Toyota plans to work with partners to market Toyota e-Palette vehicles in various areas and regions in early 2020.
Source: TOYOTA
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