New partnership with Beep – ZF industrializes shuttle business
With the US mobility provider Beep, ZF has already established a partnership for its new shuttle generation: ZF and Beep have signed an agreement to bring the shuttle to market in the United States.
Headquartered in Lake Nona, Florida, Beep delivers the next generation of shared mobility services. Specializing in planning, deploying and managing advanced autonomous shuttles for both private and public communities, Beep safely connects people, places and services in first-mile, last-mile mobility networks across the United States. The company has been safely testing autonomous shuttles for more than three years, with more than 100,000 road hours, and operates the largest and longest-tenured private-sector autonomous mobility network in the U.S. in Lake Nona, Florida.
"We are excited to partner with ZF to bring their next shuttle generation to market in the United States," said Joe Moye, Chief Executive Officer for Beep. "ZF’s full suite of shuttle services, its U.S. partner network and its automotive-grade vehicle complement our turnkey mobility networks and autonomous services technology platform. This shuttle will allow us to continue to pursue our vision of extending mobility equity and reducing carbon emissions, expanding our use cases while meeting industrial requirements for vehicle service life, performance and safety."
Beep is evaluating a number of possible sites and routes with both new and existing customers. "Our offer of clean, efficient and affordable mobility is convincing, and has found a partner and major customer in Beep", says Torsten Gollewski.
ZF is a full-range supplier for autonomous transport systems
As a technology leader, ZF sees itself not only as a shuttle supplier, but also as a partner for the entire life cycle of its shuttles. Therefore, the partnership also includes comprehensive service maintenance to ensure smooth operation to help maximize uptime of the shuttles.
"For service, customers can rely on ZF’s global network with 20,000 workshop partners worldwide. In North America alone, we have 3,000 workshop partners, so support of our customers is always a priority", emphasizes Marco Neubold, Vice President Industrial Aftermarket and Autonomous Mobility at ZF.
Additionally, ZF’s Mobility Solutions subsidiary provides a complete ecosystem for autonomous transport systems: Starting with individual consulting, planning of driving routes and the shuttles utilized to consulting on the required infrastructure, as well as charging and fleet management. These services can be smoothly integrated into existing systems and help enhance operational efficiency.
With ZF’s rollout of autonomous shuttle systems, the Group is taking a leading role in the future development of public transport. "This is true to our strategy of bringing autonomous driving at Level 4 into operational use first with commercial vehicles and shuttles. Autonomous transport systems are no longer a vision. We are starting with the implementation ", Torsten Gollewski emphasizes.
