Toyota’s i-ROAD half way through Cité Lib by Ha:mo trial

Up to you!

You can go for the Toyota COMS, which is a 4-wheel one-seater electric vehicle with a trunk. But the most popular vehicle, chosen by six people out of ten, is the Toyota i-ROAD, which is unlike anything you’ve ever tried before. Most people in these colourful, futuristic looking 3-wheelers compare it to skiing, as the car leans over when you corner. It’s also different in the sense that the rear wheel is the steering wheel. Other than that, anyone with a driver’s license can hop on and drive off!

A three-year trial project

This 3-year trial project is now in its second year. After the first year where the focus was on getting the vehicles and all the charging stations fully operational, the partners now want to attract many more users on top of the current 1,000 subscribed to the service. For some of the highly active users an exclusive ‘Users’ Club’ has been created. For the partners it’s a way to pick up on suggestions they may have, ensuring the service responds even better to their mobility needs.

Some interesting insights

So far, the experience has already given some interesting insights. The average trip is around 5km or 45 minutes, and 75% drops off the vehicle at another station than the original pick-up point. It also confirms one of the key objectives of this whole project: people use it in combination with other forms of transport such as public transportation, walking and cycling (also called ‘multimodality’).

There is no particular reason that stands out from the many purposes it’s being used for: running errands, visiting friends and family, commute to work, leisure, an evening out, …

And when asked to describe the service, ‘ecological’ and ‘practical’ are the words that come to mind first besides enjoyable, economical, flexible, fast, fun…