The Dijon Symone bus will revolutionize your road trip

The fight against global warming inevitably forces us to reconsider the way we travel. Young Dijon company Simon
understands this well and is currently working on a zero-emission bus designed to reduce the number of vehicles on the road and equipped with sockets to charge electric cars during the journey. You can reserve your seat and travel without getting tired. Interview with Romain Coispine, co-founder of Symone.

is loaded

France Bleu Bourgogne: Symone is a company very committed to fighting global warming and pollution. You go beyond carpooling, explain why or how?

Romain Coispin: We realized that more than 100,000 vehicles, cars, motorcycles make long trips on the highway every day. And so we had to find a solution, but also to stop wasting time behind the wheel. That’s why we invented Simon. In addition, you should know that road trips account for more than 6% of greenhouse gas emissions in France alone. And that’s just for light vehicles and utility vehicles.

What is Symon’s principle?

This is a great expressive trainer. Specifically, we will book our trip on the Symone mobile app and then you will arrive with your car or motorcycle at the top of the toll. Symone is waiting for you there. We’ll load your car or motorcycle up and you’ll be seated in the comfortable passenger compartment. It’s like shoveling on the road or the existing car train, but here it’s more agile and directly on the highway and completely safe.

But can buses also pollute?

Exactly. But here, it’s already a shared travel mode, so it will save CO2 anyway. The biggest advantage is above all that Symone is equipped with green hydrogen. Thus, it will enable the decarbonisation of highways.

Will this only apply to long driveways?

we are going mainly offers Symone on long distance lines of less than or more than 200 km, Lyon / Paris / Mediterranean. Cross arrows also between West and East. Symone will carry 6 to 9 vehicles, i.e. cars or motorbikes, but we can provide Symone with the same benefits of opening up areas, offering a train-like solution, even for medium-sized cities. on the transverse axes.

We will talk about Cote d’Or. If we leave Dijon to go to Paris, would we consider taking this Symone bus?

Indeed, to go from Dijon to Paris, we can pass Simon toll-for-toll. We also see that this Simon is of great interest to all institutions and politicians with its “road safety” and “ecological transition” aspects. We got the support of about fifty MPs, which is really great!

You have launched a call for funding. How?

In a few weeks, we will start this challenge for two or three months, probably from April or May. For participation starting at €100 and open to all, anyone can participate to enter this great adventure and therefore become a shareholder in the company.

What date do you intend to put these Symone buses into service?

The prototype should be released in early 2024. Our goal is to launch it for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, which will be a great launch show for people to discover this innovation. The next step will be to industrialize it in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté from 2025. We aim to have up to a hundred Symones in circulation in France by 2030, before expanding further abroad.