
The three major barriers for the deployment of EV in the EU – the high cost of vehicles, the low level of consumer acceptance, and the lack of recharging stations – form a vicious circle. The purpose of MEISTER is to break this circle by designing, validating and promoting BMs to make it more attractive for operators to install charging infrastructure and for potential customers to use this infrastructure. Furthermore, MEISTER approach can be transferred to cities across Europe to boost EV deployment. Berlin, Stockholm and Malaga believe that the key to achieve this is to actively integrate e-mobility in the cities’ SUMPs and city planning process to get a more consistent focus on e-mobility and cooperation among stakeholders. Moreover, the local governments of these three cities are strongly committed to e-mobility deployment, to the extend that they have already allocated internal budgets and made the financial arrangements for deploying e-mobility in the selected sectors of MEISTER project. In addition, a specific task (T2.4) will elaborate on the financial arrangements for deploying e-mobility in the MEISTER sectors. The specific focus areas for the MEISTER project are described in the objectives below. Each objective is broken down in several sub-objectives, and has at least one achievement indicator (AI), which will be used to measure its successful achievement. Furthermore, each AI has three values associated: AI1 (month 12), AI2 (month 18) and AI3 (month 36). These three values will allow using the AIs to measure the overall project progress towards the successful completion of its objectives.
MEISTER will test and establish innovative and profitable BMs for smart and integrated services to promote e-mobility in different stages of city maturity (from the planning stage of a new neighbourhood to an old city centre). The starting point will be the existing urban e-mobility ecosystems where the legal framework (e.g. use of public and private space for parking and charging, grid operation, privacy aspects), stakeholders’ interests, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of those ecosystems will be deeply analysed aiming at:
O1.1. Reduce installation and operational costs for charging infrastructure operators (increase offer).
O1.2. Reduce charging prices for customers (increase demand).
To tackle the challenge of creating viable alternatives for current BMs, MEISTER will consider the value creation mechanisms and the value elements attributed to the proposed solution and their effects to stakeholder groups within the e-mobility ecosystem. Thus, MEISTER will explore new cooperation frameworks and 6 BMs, both for existing urban areas and new ones to be built, namely: E-car sharing as housing service, Smart park + charge, E-car sharing in municipal fleet, City e-logistics enabling ultra-low emissions hubs, E-car sharing services for elderly and disabled and Smart charging. Each business model will be analysed and documented in Strategic Outline, Outline and Full Business Case in each city where it will be tested, according to the Five Case Model methodology (attending to the strategic, economic, commercial, financial and organizational issues).
AI | AI1 | AI2 | AI3 |
Regulatory & legal framework | Analyse Local, National, EU | Include into pilots | Feedback to relevant bodies |
Barriers & Solutions | Identify barriers | Propose solutions | Solutions tested |
Business Case of each pilot site | Strategic Outline Programme and Strategic Outline Cases | Outline Business Case | Full Business Case |
Commercial frameworks for the public sector | Analyse Local, National, EU | Include into pilots and Business Cases | Feedback to relevant bodies |
Number of BMs analysed | 6 | 6 | 6 |
% Reduction on EVSE installation costs | 0 | 10 | 20 |
% Reduction on EVSE operational costs | 0 | 20 | 40 |
% Reduction on EV charging prices | 0 | 10 | 20 |
New EVs | 0 | 400 | 1,000 |
MEISTER will design and develop role models for a charging point operator and mobility service provider-independent information, authentication and billing platform for parking and charging. They will be integrated in the overall Mobility Platform of cities for managing smart e-mobility. Thus, interoperability issues will be solved and a safe and reliable data exchange in cities will be a reality by:
O2.1. Design and development of role models for operator- and provider-independent, non-discriminatory information, authentication and billing schemas that will ensure interoperability among charging operators, mobility service providers and EU cities.
O2.2. Integrated real-time information and booking services. New EV related services such as combined smart parking and charging, monitoring and information in public and semi-public space, routing, reservation of parking and charging stations, will be deployed and managed by the platform.
O2.3. E-mobility information platform for smart cities. An overall architecture will be designed to support the backend of the system and three different interfaces: for the charging operator management, for the cities (i.e. the urban ICT platform) and the authentication device, e.g. a smart phone app for the customers.
AI | AI1 | AI2 | AI3 |
Operators [1] involved in the platform | 0 | 20 | 40 |
Customers registered in the platform | 0 | 10,000 | 51,500 |
Number of integrated services in the platform | 2 | 4 | 6 |
[1] E-car sharing, urban e-logistics companies, parking and charging operators enrolled in MEISTER platform.
In order to ensure a more efficient use of urban space and mitigate adverse traffic effects, MEISTER will integrate smart e-mobility solutions in the following aspects of SUMPs:
O3.1. Planning and use of e-urban space in existing urban areas and new ones to be built.
O3.2. Planning and use of e-logistics hubs and distribution centers for last mile delivery.
As part of the planning process, studies will be performed for potential EVSE allocations including use of urban space requirements (public and private ground) to decide among the most suitable slow or fast charge outlets. In an initial phase, a compilation of existing e-mobility planning strategies and related studies will be tackled. As a result, an eSUMPS knowledge base of previous and on-going experiences in e-mobility is obtained, becoming an underlying element supporting the core elements of the creation of a European eMobility Expertise Centre (EeMEC) to facilitate the transferability of best practices from the three cities participating in the project –and other cities leading eMobility in Europe- to other European local governments. Furthermore, recommendations on the design of ultra-low emissions urban areas will be provided.
AI | AI1 | AI2 | AI3 |
% Reduction of on-street parking spaces demand | 0 | 1.5 | 3 |
Share of EV in city logistic fleets | 5% | 10% | 20% |
CO2 savings (Tons) / year due to electromobility | 0 | 40,000 | 199,750 |
MEISTER will integrate tools for the smart management of EV charging and discharging, including the possible use of their batteries as storage systems. This will be done both for individually owned vehicles and for vehicle fleets (public or private). Hence, it will be possible to use the EV to better answer to demand variations (e.g. use EV as supporting storage unit to cover peaks of demand, or even use the EV storage capability to flatten load curves). Moreover, a study on the acceptance of discharging by EV-owners will be carried out. In addition, the project will evaluate the impact of the deployment of charging points in the power grid and will provide information to customers e.g. advising when and where it is most cost-effective to recharge the vehicle or convenient to optimise RES use. The integration with smart grid services will be deployed by the following sub-objectives:
O4.1. Charge scheduling to optimise costs and RES use.
O4.2. EV as supporting storage for private use.
O4.3. EV as supporting storage for DSO.
AI | AI1 | AI2 | AI3 |
MWh storage capacity | 0 | 20 | 42 |
% Effective RES usage | 0 | 15 | 30 |

Thereby, MEISTER will develop integrated approaches, smart solutions and profitable BMs to achieve the objectives and outcomes previously explained. Figure 1 shows the matching between the 4 project objectives (O1, O2, O3, O4), the 6 different BMs (see dotted rectangles) that will be tested in the different MEISTER pilot sites, and the 5 supporting products (P1, P2, P3, P4, P5. See yellow boxes) that will be developed in the project, implemented and tested in the different pilot sites.
The five resulting MEISTER products will be implemented and tested in all the pilot sites. Morevover, 50% of the business models will be tested and validated in two or more pilot sites to enable the cross-site and transferability evaluation of MEISTER.