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Description
UpSteam is an Estonian company that offers a mobile car wash service by connecting car owners and mobile car washers. With the increased popularity of car wash services among European consumers, new car washing solutions are emerging on the market that are specialised in offering environmentally friendly alternatives to the traditional car washing methods. Moreover, these eco-friendly solutions take into consideration the consumers’ growing need for flexible services that are offered wherever the customer needs it the most. The flexibility of the service means that the customers do not have to drive to the car wash, instead the car washing providers arrive to the location of the customer’s car when the customer has booked the service.
UpSteam Eesti OÜ has developed a mobile car washing service with an online booking system where the washer drives to the location of the customer’s car with a specially equipped washing van or a bicycle and all of the necessary materials to provide the washing service. UpSteam is also offering waterless car wash that reduces the overall water consumption and improves the environmental impact of the car washing service as the technology uses about 1 litre of water per car. This sort of waterless washing service is offered by washers who are moving around the city with bicycles and carry a backpack with all of the necessary materials. The waterless car wash will be the main service provided to customers in the target markets.
Within the project, UpSteam aims its activities into developing a new platform that supports P2P business model and together with CityQ, they are building a new version of the CityQ Car-ebike with a cargo box (called “UpQ”). Developments include design, sourcing and development, tools and prototyping, testing and adjustments and the production of the finalized version together with the piloting of the final version with users in operation.
Summary of project results
The project was targeted to the car wash industry in order to further digitise the car wash process and create smarter solutions to increase the user activity.
Within the project, Project Promoter developed the Fleet app supporting the company''s business model and the functionality of the business model around it. The software development included customer app developments, which is a mobile application for B2C customer segment on iOS and Android phones. App is integrated with Upsteam user behavior analytics tool and has capability to send personalised push notifications. Developments also covered the planning interface activities, whic is Upsteam’s internal tool for task planning. It takes customer orders and divides them between washers. During task planning various aspects should be considered e.g. how many washers are available, driving time to customer location and wash station, customer’s time limitations, washer qualification, service planned duration, wash stations availability, vehicle size etc. Before the project, task planning was completed manually and was a very time consuming process. During the Green ICT project the planning process was automated. Also, new functionalities to support transfer services were added. The planning view remained in use mainly to monitor and verify results of automated planning. The existing platform was further complemented with booking web, washer app and backend developments.
In addition, donor poject partner CityQ has completed the weatherproof cargo bikes that can be produced and also sold to other companies.
Project Promoter wants to support climate neutrality and promote the need to save water and thereby reduce the environmental impact of the car wash industry. Every new UpSteam customer contributes to this goal. All planned goals of the project have been achieved. In total, CO2 emissions have been reduced by an estimated 72.56 tons of CO2 equivalent within the project.
Summary of bilateral results
The partnership worked effectively and both parties achieved the set goals. The partnership is likely to continue beyond the project period.