Session 2 Dr Brian Caulfield - SEAI National Energy Research & Policy Conference 2022

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National Energy
Research and Policy
Conference 2022
Societal Transformation

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Brian Caulfield, Associate Professor and Head of Civil Engineering, Centre
for Transport Research, Trinity College Dublin
TRACT: TRAnsport
Behaviour Change Trials

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Project
- Will run for 3 years
- The project had an interdisciplinary team in Trinity including; the School of Engineering, Computer
Science and Statistics and Psychology
- The project will fund four post doctoral research fellows
- The project includes several industry partners (mentioned later)
- The main objective of the project is to test how novel technologies, personalisation and nudging
could result in transport behaviour change

4. Mobility Hubs
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Mobility Hub
- Length of the trial: operating the trial over 18 months provides the TRACT project team the time
to fully explore the usage of the mobility options
- Personalisation: using machine learning our app will be able to tailor suggestions to users that
provide viable alternatives to the car in the mobility hub
- Need for a cross-sectoral approach: changing transport behaviour is a challenge requiring
inputs from many different fields.
- Mixed modes: As shown in the last slide, several modes of transport will be examined in the
mobility hub and the analysis will examine how they can be integrated

6. Electric Car use cases – TRACT App
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Electric Car use cases – TRACT App
- Nissan Ireland will promote the app at each of its 42 dealerships across Ireland. Nissan has
traditionally been the largest sellers of EVs in Ireland
- FREE NOW will promote the app to its 14,000 taxi drivers in Ireland
- The app will be available on common platforms and we aim to have at least 10,000 users across
Ireland (across the different use cases related to the general public, those without the possibility of
domestic charging and those in rural areas)
- Users will receive personalised information using exact data on the user’s current trip making
behaviour to simulate for them in real-time how an EV could serve their needs
- The data collected will provide a large and geographically dispersed representation across the
different use cases.

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Work Packages

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Work timeline

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For more information please contact:
Brian Caulfield
Email: brian.Caulfield@tcd.ie
Twitter: brian_caulfield
https://www.tcd.ie/research/profiles/?profile=caulfib
Thank You