Agreement with Daimler Buses means ChargePoint customers with Mercedes-Benz and Setra buses no longer need to install additional hardware.
Before ChargePoint, Daimler Buses Had Already Had Fifteen Partners Across Europe
Daimler Buses announced on 27 August 2024 that it had signed a partnership agreement with ChargePoint, one of Europe’s largest telematics service providers for electric buses.
“The aim of the new partnership is to enable transport companies with multi-brand fleets to use vehicle data from Mercedes-Benz and Setra buses without additional hardware and, on a larger scale, in the ChargePoint fleet management system,” Daimler Buses wrote in an official statement.
Daimler Buses currently offers its customers a wide range of connectivity solutions through Omniplus On digital services. Customers can access the digital services in the Omniplus On portal, by integrating high-quality vehicle data into telemetry systems from telematics service providers, or via partner applications.
Optimising Fleet Management
Before the agreement with ChargePoint was signed, fifteen well-known European providers of telematics and depot management systems were already partners and offered their customers the Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) portfolio to integrate vehicle data from Daimler Buses into the fleet management systems. ChargePoint is now joining this group as another important telematics provider.
Bernd Mack, Head of Customer Services & Parts and Used Vehicles at Daimler Buses, said, “I am very pleased that, in ChargePoint, we were able to gain another partner for our Data-as-a-Service ecosystem. The partnership with ChargePoint is a further important component in making the use of vehicle data as easy and secure as possible for our bus customers.”
Uwe Münch, Director of Bus & Transit Europe at ChargePoint, commented, “Many of our bus fleet customers across Europe have buses from Daimler Buses in their fleet. This partnership is therefore a real benefit for the customers of both companies. With this new partnership, we are opening up additional options for users of our software to optimise their bus fleet. And not only for electric buses but also for conventionally powered vehicles, which our software also manages for mixed fleets.”
Several Advantages for Customers
With the new agreement, ChargePoint customers with Mercedes-Benz and Setra buses in their fleet no longer need to install additional hardware because ChargePoint can use data from the Bus Data Center, which is a standard feature in all buses from Daimler Buses. All that is required is a monthly data package from Omniplus On that can be purchased for each individual bus and the transport company’s data release.
Another benefit is that the Bus Data Center transmits over 450 data points in real time as well as all vehicle diagnostic data. In addition, it can receive commands sent via mobile network, for example for the preconditioning of the eCitaro, thus opening up additional options for the fleet management system.
Last but not least, ChargePoint customers operating Daimler Buses vehicles now benefit from a very high level of security when it comes to data transfer.
The reason for this is that Daimler Buses is the first bus manufacturer to have homologated its vehicles in accordance with the new, international cybersecurity directive UN ECE R155. In concrete terms, this means that the data is permanently protected against unauthorised access with a very high standard along the entire connectivity route from the vehicle to Daimler Buses’ cloud.
