Another award for Critchlow Geospatial for SwitchMyFleet at the 2022 Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards

It was fantastic that I was able to attend the Locate 22 conference in Canberra, Australia this week. This was my first opportunity to attend a regional in-person geospatial conference since 2019. The highlight for me was the Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards (the APSEAs) that were held at a gala dinner on Wednesday 25 May.

The APSEAs are held regionally across Australia and in New Zealand and are a long-standing premier awards programme with a diverse range of private, public and academic sector organisations all vying for these prestigious honours. With our New Zealand win in February 2022, we were automatically entered into the SIBA|GITA Technical Excellence category.

Today, I’m thrilled to let you know that Critchlow Geospatial is the APSEA 2022 winner of the SIBA|GITA Award for Technical Excellence for our SwitchMyFleet solution, a world first innovation created for the transport sector that we developed with co-funding from New Zealand government through the Low Emission Vehicles Contestable Fund (LEVCF) administered by the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA).

If you haven’t checked it out yet, SwitchMyFleet is our free online evaluation tool for businesses considering switching their commercial vehicle fleet to electric power. It uses authoritative New Zealand address and road network data from NationalMap and the user’s own real-world fleet configuration and route inputs to calculate the metrics businesses need to build their case to transition.

Combining the physics of moving vehicles, New Zealand geospatial data, and route optimisation algorithms, SwitchMyFleet is an easy-to-use tool that balances time, distance, and energy use. It is truly innovative, yet practical and easy to use.

Richard Briggs, Manager, Transport Portfolio, at EECA had this to say on learning about Critchlow Geospatial’s most recent award’s success:

“It’s a real pleasure to comment on another momentous win for Critchlow Geospatial. The transport sector provides the single largest opportunity to improve New Zealand’s energy productivity and reduce energy-related emissions. It’s tools such as SwitchMyFleet that will enable this sector to more quickly and confidently transition from ICE to electric vehicles, so that they can realise cost savings, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and help accelerate the decarbonisation of New Zealand.”

This latest win is yet another international success for the Critchlow team after being named global winner of the Location-Based Services category at the internationally acclaimed Geospatial World Innovation Awards 2021 held in Amsterdam, Netherlands in October 2021 and the New Zealand Spatial Excellence Awards held in Wellington in February 2022.

Personally, I’m thrilled that the efforts of our team have been recognised once again with this award. It’s further validation of the potential for SwitchMyFleet to support the move to sustainable transport systems globally. It also perfectly highlights and showcases the kind of innovative thinking and solutions that Critchlow Geospatial can provide when it comes to preparing for our low carbon future.