At the beginning of September, two events revolved around this question: Zukunft Nahverkehr (engl. “Future of Public Transport”) by DB Regio AG in Berlin and the IAA Mobility in Munich. Our mobility experts from ioki were present at both events and look back on days full of inspiration.
The mobility of the future must be possible without owning a car. An overwhelming majority of people in Germany agrees with this, according to the German Consumer Report 2023 of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv). However, many people, especially in rural areas, are still disconnected from local public transport. Complete independence from individual transport can only be achieved if mobility offers attract more people. Public transport must become more appealing. But what does that mean and how can we achieve this mobility of the future?
Two years ago, the city of Gronau in the Münsterland region completely switched its scheduled bus service to a tariff-integrated DRT concept. Since then, the so-called G(ronau)-Mobil has been operating 130 stops flexibly and after pre-booking, significantly more than its predecessor “StadtBus” (“city bus”). But how do the services catch on with the population and shouldn’t DRT services complement existing scheduled services, not replace them? We asked one of the facilitators of the G-Mobil: Dennis Schöne, who works in the traffic management of Regionalverkehr Münsterland GmbH, the service’s operator.
Demand-responsive Transport (DRT) refers to a technology-based and shared mobility service. Instead of following predefined routes, timetables and fixed stops, on-demand services follow no timetable, also make virtual stops and operate on different routes. The vehicles operate on demand and when needed. Booking is usually done via app but can also be done via phone call and/or in the web browser. DRT combines the reliability of conventional public transport with the flexible availability of private cars.
This time we’re off to the far north, or more precisely to the Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The port metropolis on the Elbe is a pioneer in Germany for digital, climate-friendly and flexible mobility.
Since December 2021, EMMI-MOBIL has been driving with two electric minibuses through the municipal area of Bad Hindelang. By doing the service is supplementing the existing public transport service as an on-demand service in order to offer an attractive flexible and free-of-charge mobility solution, especially for the guests of the Allgäu holiday region. A good reason for ioki insights to ask Maximilian Hillmeier, tourism director of Bad Hindelang, how demand-responsive mobility can be successfully established as part of a sustainable tourism strategy and how the future of mobility in holiday regions can look like.
Holidays without mobility are only possible on staycations, because no matter whether it’s a day trip, an annual holiday or a long-term trip: Travelling means being mobile. In order to achieve the climate protection goals and to advance the traffic turnaround, tourist traffic should also be critically examined, because Germans like to travel a lot.
As Senior Expert Shared Automated Mobility at ioki, Tanja Wiesenthal is already working today on the future of tomorrow. ioki has been one of the pioneers of autonomous driving in public transport since the beginning and covers all the necessary processes for driverless public transport, from app development and the algorithm for ridepooling to operational platform op-eration. Tanja Wiesenthal worked for SAP before and has been working for ioki since 2020, where she is responsible for the procedural and technical conception of ridepooling with au-tonomous vehicles at ioki.
Autonomous mobility is no longer a utopia; it is already reality and a key technology in today’s world. Worldwide, and especially in Europe, research and testing are being carried out on autonomous mobility – this holds great potential in terms of improving individual mobility thanks to increasingly efficient services while also providing a way of reducing private transport.
Autonomous driving has been considered one of the major trends in the mobility industry for years. According to a representative survey conducted by the digital association Bitkom in 2021, 99.8 percent of respondents can imagine using an autonomous means of transport*. But what does it actually mean when car manufacturers send the first systems for highly automated driving on the road at level 3 and level 4 autonomous shuttles reinforce public transport in Germany on demand from 2023 onwards?
Since the beginning of 2023, PostBus Ltd* has been offering its employees in Berne demand responsive employee transport. It’s about time for ioki insights to take a look at how sustainable and sensible mobility for employees can look in Switzerland. Fabian Heil, Head of Market Launch at PostBus, was available to talk to us.
Three years ago, Dr Olga Nevska, CEO Telekom Mobility Solutions, was interviewed in our blog series “PERSPECTIVES from …”. At that time, we talked about the challenges of organising company mobility solutions, but also about employee mobility at Telekom and the then new on-demand service with ioki software.
Since 2020, a lot has happened in the area of mobility and work. That’s why ioki insights asked again. This time, it’s all about the changes in employee mobility since the pandemic, the trends in corporate mobility and how demand responsive services are being received by employees.
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At the beginning of September, two events revolved around this question: Zukunft Nahverkehr (engl. “Future of Public Transport”) by DB Regio AG in Berlin and the IAA Mobility in Munich. Our mobility experts from ioki were present at both events and look back on days full of inspiration.
