Toyota chooses Indiana for mobility hub

'Future Mobility District' is designed to bring in new energy and transport innovation
By Adam Hill October 26, 2020 Read time: 2 mins
Indiana aims to attract investment and benefit from mobility changes (© Rudi1976 Dreamstime.com)

Toyota Mobility Foundation (TMF) is to make Indiana an R&D hub for advanced mobility technologies, the Japanese company has announced.

The US state will be the organisation’s first ‘Future Mobility District’ in the US.

It is backed by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and Energy Systems Network (ESN), a local non-profit which is focused on new energy technology and transportation, and which will provide contacts for TMF.

The idea is to get companies looking at new advanced mobility innovations into Indiana, focusing on validating interoperability and integration with the state’s existing transportation systems.

TMF says it will “collaborate with local stakeholders to increase opportunities for advanced mobility by fuelling testing of mobility-enabled technologies”.

Founded in 2014, TMF is looking at central Indiana for advanced mobility deployment and says it will provide details on project proposals as it establishes a presence in the state.

Paul Mitchell, CEO of ESN, points to changes in the way that people and goods are moving: “This Future Mobility District initiative will prepare Indiana for these changes and help ensure that our economy and society benefit from them.”

“We’re committed to embracing innovation and investing in emerging areas like advanced mobility in order to remain competitive and position our industries for long-term growth,” adds Indiana secretary of commerce Jim Schellinger.

Mass Transit & MaaS

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Is DSRC progressive enough for future connected mobility?
    February 3, 2012
    Dedicated Short Range Communications technology, says Cisco's Paul Brubaker, is not by itself progressive enough to sustain long-term innovation in the connected mobility environment - and yet IPv6 and other developments remain largely ignored by policy-makers
    Read More
  • Creating foundations for European MaaS model
    February 26, 2021
    Public transport is backbone of Mobility as a Service in Europe, says Piia Karjalainen
    Read More
  • Technology and finance shapes up to make MaaS happen
    June 7, 2017
    The technology and finance aspects needed for Mobility as a Service (MaaS) to become widely adopted are taking shape as Geoff Hadwick and Colin Sowman hear. Sampo Hietanen, CEO of MaaS Global and ‘father’ of MaaS, started his address to ITS International’s recent MaaS Market conference in London by saying: “All of the problems that can be solved by a company or group of companies have already been solved, and now we are left with the big ones such as housing, transport and health. He called MaaS the “Netfli
    Read More
  • Cost benefit goes under the microscope
    August 21, 2017
    Conventional cost benefit analysis (CBA) of plans for urban smart mobility initiatives needs serious rethinking, according to a recently-completed European study. The three-year Evidence Project (the Project) emerged in response to concerns about the availability and quality of documented research – including CBA – required to prove that investment in sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMPs) can be economically beneficial. Covering 22 sectors ranging from electric vehicles to shared spaces, the Project clai
    Read More

Highlighted Content