Case Study LDS - Location Data

A thriving community of travel communities and geospatial partners in Scotland

A thriving community of travel communities and geospatial partners in Scotland

Electrek Explorer is an eco-mapping web app that puts all the information required for an Electric adventure-trip in one place. It enables users to explore using EVs and E-bikes, opening new horizons for sustainable travel. They have strong links with eco-tourism businesses, local food providers and eco-accommodation as well as nature conservation groups and wildlife charities, providing a fully eco-friendly experience for its customers.

Electrek Explorer was looking to expand their network of connections in tourism and EV charging and connect with other businesses working across the geospatial community to learn, share ideas and help create best practice.

Accessing the right data sources to help enhance their electric road trips, E-bike trails and nature exploration was an exciting challenge for Electrek Explorer. The team at Location Data Scotland (LDS) were able to provide information about the data needs of people involved in Scottish Tourism via the Tourism Observatory and introduced them to the Crowne Estate to explore potential nature-based tourism data for Recharge in Nature. LDS also introduced Electrek Explorer to the GIS Manager at Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park who are currently exploring active travel and net zero ambitions. Although they have no data to share currently, Electrek Explorer hope they will form a key partner in the future.

Connections were also made with Electric vehicle charge point organisations Miralis Data and Sustainable Mobility Cluster Builder to identify the specific locations for the EV charging points.

Elaine Ford, Founder and CEO of Electrek Explorer said:

“We are part of a thriving community of travel communities and geospatial partners in Scotland, including GeoVation, NatureScot, Travel Tech Scotland and Location Data Scotland. Having this vibrant community has allowed us to identify funders and partners for our webApp – Nature Scot and Electrek Explorer: Recharge in Nature WebApp. But it has also allowed us to identify advisory board members, partner companies, and potential investors.

Location Data Scotland adds a lot to this mix. As a company it is essential that we identify and collaborate with numerous individuals and organisations capturing data to make our sustainable travel routes as rich as possible. The Location Data Scotland geospatial community is valuable for facilitating introductions in their network and we appreciate the support and connections they can provide which are essential to businesses at our stage of growth.

We’re really excited to have now launched the Electrek Explorer Recharge in Nature Web App as we have more exciting nature rich trips coming soon.”

LDS opening the right doors for B2B solutions provider Vahanomy

Tech entrepreneur Arun Gopinath has a vision of the future with a fully joined up inclusive ecosystem for autonomous vehicles and services and is positioning his company Vahanomy at the heart of that ecosystem.

The global EV charging public infrastructure market is forecast to be US$60 billion by 2030, with location analysis and site selection estimated at 8% of the cost (US$4.8 billion). Early this year the UK government announced that they were allocating £450m to create 300,000 public charging stations, a huge opportunity for Vahanomy. Arun comments:

“We don’t know exactly what the autonomous vehicle landscape will look like in the future but what we do know is that it will be powered by electric vehicles in the foreseeable future. There is currently a huge opportunity in Scotland and the rest of the UK to lay the foundations for our future vision and we see a massive opportunity to introduce our services to the rest of the world.”

Vahanomy is an Edinburgh based start-up developing innovative artificial intelligence data drivenB2B solutions to enable the accelerated rollout of electric vehicles (EV) charging infrastructure globally.

The company’s first two products include an AI-powered location data intelligence tool that will assess and analyse proposed EV charging locations and the portal; a B2B and B2C marketplace listing potential charging sites and services and facilitate the trading of EV charging sites and trading capacity and provide analytics of demand and supply of services in the EV charging ecosystem.

As a business, Vahanomy has a strong ethical stance that they will create solutions for everyone that will reduce our carbon footprint and make transport much more mobile and accessible.Arun and his fellow directors originate from outside Scotland and were challenged when starting to build their network of connections in Scotland. Arun commented:

“There is a fantastic support network across Scotland from Scottish Enterprise, to the University infrastructure, with lots of different touch points to find partners, investors, customers, and staff. Unfortunately, if you are not originally from Scotland and not part of a university network it is difficult to know how to start navigating this landscape. Vahanomy was accepted onto the TravelTech for Scotland programme which then exposed them to Location Data Scotland and the EIE (Engage, Invest, Exploit) programme through the University of Edinburgh. Each of these connections have provided lots of different opportunities and validation.”

Vahanomy identified several key stakeholders that they wanted to engage with through Location Data Scotland to help them quantify their idea, test their technology and source data sets including Registers of Scotland, the Improvement Service, Geospatial Commission and Ordnance Survey. Arun commented:

“We realised early on that these stakeholders were going to be instrumental in helping ussource the data we needed to deliver our services and evolve our ecosystem. Ashley at Location Data Scotland has a fantastic network of connections and she easily started opening doors for us to the right people across the location data domain. We’ve had initial meetings with these individuals, and they have started to share information and open doors that have been instrumental for the next stages in our business growth.”

To find out more about Vahanomy visit www.vahanomy.com