Micromobility operator TIER has announced a strategic partnership with Irish tech platform Luna, with a view to piloting computer vision and smart city technology on shared e-scooter fleets in Europe and the Middle East.
The move comes as part of an Enterprise Ireland trade mission to Germany where Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar met with representatives from Luna and Tier in Berlin.
The meeting aimed to build on the relationship between Ireland and Germany within electric mobility, and the future role of shared e-scooter schemes in Ireland once legislation is passed.
Luna will also create 15 new full time jobs to assist with the work on these pilot projects.
Shared e-scooter trials are currently taking place across five Dublin City University campuses, with TIER and Luna operating the scheme.
The firms are in talks about expanding the partnership into Paris and the Middle East, utilising computer vision on e-scooters to capture more accurate and up to date mapping data, that will assist the deployment of micromobility schemes in cities on a global scale.
There will be further collaboration on digital mapping platforms, while TIER and Luna are also examining how the Luna computer vision hardware can be embedded into TIER vehicles at the point of manufacture.
“I’m really happy to see this strategic partnership between Irish company Luna and Europe’s leading e-scooter operator TIER,” Varadkar said at the announcement of the new partnership.
Matthias Laug, CTO and co-Founder of TIER, added: “We are already working closely with Luna in Dublin, and this broader strategic agreement allows us to expand the scope and ambition of our partnership. We see computer vision as a valuable tool in our mission to change mobility for good and to lead the way towards seamless, sustainable and safe micromobility.
“Alongside our world-leading parking capabilities with Fantasmo, this powerful collaboration with Europe’s leading computer vision and edge AI startup in the scooter space, allows us to explore the full potential of this exciting technology on our fleet. Luna thinks about cities in the same way as we do, and we look forward to jointly developing new solutions that address some of the key smart city challenges our city partners are identifying, from pavement riding to infrastructure monitoring and from litter alerts to road condition reports.”
