ROUTE MONKEY LTD

Their core work

Route Monkey is a UK-based software company specialising in route optimisation and fleet management technology for electric vehicles. Their core product is an ICT platform that calculates optimal routes for EV fleets while accounting for battery range, charging infrastructure, and operational constraints. In EU projects, they bring this optimisation engine to smart city and smart island deployments — helping cities manage electric mobility at scale, integrate EVs into demand-response schemes, and reduce grid stress from uncoordinated charging. They sit at the intersection of transport logistics software and energy system management.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early period (2016), Route Monkey's H2020 involvement centred squarely on electric mobility replicability and ICT platform deployment — the focus was on making EV fleet management work across multiple cities. By 2017, their project portfolio expanded into the energy system layer: SMILE introduced smartgrid, storage, demand-response, and renewable energy sources as the primary technical context. This suggests a deliberate move from pure transport logistics into the energy-mobility interface, where EV charging becomes a tool for grid balancing rather than just a transport service.

Route Monkey is moving from EV routing software toward vehicle-to-grid and demand-response integration, positioning themselves at the energy-transport nexus where electrified fleets become flexible grid assets.

How they like to work

Route Monkey has participated exclusively as a consortium partner, never taking a coordinator role — consistent with a specialist software provider that joins consortia to deploy a specific technology component rather than lead projects. With 64 unique partners across 10 countries from just 2 projects, they operate in large, multi-stakeholder Innovation Action consortia typical of smart city demonstrators. This suggests they are comfortable in complex multi-partner environments and have strong collaborative experience, though their actual day-to-day leadership within consortia remains unclear from the available data.

Route Monkey has built a surprisingly broad network for a two-project organisation — 64 unique partners spanning 10 countries, reflecting the large consortium structures of smart city Innovation Actions like REPLICATE and SMILE. Their network likely includes city authorities, energy utilities, universities, and other technology SMEs across Western Europe.

What sets them apart

Route Monkey occupies a narrow but commercially valuable niche: they bring real, deployable route optimisation software to research consortia that are often heavy on vision but light on working transport technology. Unlike academic partners that model EV behaviour theoretically, Route Monkey contributes a production-ready ICT platform — making them attractive to consortia needing a credible industry technology demonstrator. For any consortium building a smart city or smart island pilot with an electric mobility component, they provide a ready-made software layer that bridges transport operations and energy management.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SMILE
  The largest single funding award (EUR 926,450) and the most technically ambitious scope — integrating EV optimisation with smartgrid, storage, and demand-response on a smart island energy system.
• REPLICATE
  A landmark smart city replication project that combined electric mobility with citizen engagement across multiple European cities, giving Route Monkey exposure to large-scale urban deployment at city level.