With the State government's electric vehicle policy targeting the roll-out of two lakh electric two-wheelers in Kerala over a five-year period, an e-scooter of a prominent manufacturer will be among the items on display when Kochi Open Mobility Network (KOMN) is launched by Minister for Transport Antony Raju, at Ernakulam Town Hall on July 23.
This is among the models which can be recharged from the grid. On their part, top officials of the KSEB would make a presentation on recharging options for e-vehicles, said sources in Kochi Metropolitan Transport Authority (KMTA) which is spearheading the KOMN initiative - said to be the first of its kind initiative which will bring a multitude of mobility apps of different modes of commute, under a single banner. They will also complement each other, seamlessly integrating different commuting modes.
Innovative among them will be Yatri app which would fetch taxi car drivers the government fare, since they would not have to pay commission (which ranges between 25% and 40% of the fare for global taxi aggregator firms).
Discussions were underway with a few prominent firms to deploy their fleet of electric two-wheelers along the metro corridor and in other passenger-dense hubs, to redress complaints about inadequate first and last-mile connectivity by filling missing links in integrating the metro with other commuting modes to lessen reliance on private vehicles.
Their main attraction will be that commuters will not have to spend a penny on capital expense while their energy charge would be approximately ₹1 per km, they said.
