We are always on the run: After work to our favorite place in the city, in the middle of the week to a business appointment once across the republic, on the weekend a short trip to a European metropolis and in the Easter holidays family vacation in the mountains…

Green, environmentally neutral and connected – these are the demands on the city of tomorrow. At the same time, people’s quality of life is to be improved and the ecological footprint reduced. Experts from all over the world are thinking about the so-called Smart Cities. In all scenarios, one thing remains clear: everyone wants to remain mobile.

What began in 1977 in Friedrichshafen is today generally known as on-demand transport: In a large-scale experiment, the people of Friedrichshafen were the first in Europe to look for a solution to adapt the existing public transport system to meet demand – thus heralding the birth of the Rufbus.

In times of Corona, we all try to keep our social contacts to a minimum in order to contain further spread as much as possible. For us at ioki, this means that the health of everyone is our top priority, which is why we have made our weekly home office routine a daily routine.

Starting with the question “Solutions of urban mobility as a blueprint for rural areas?” we dedicated our third ioki Mobility Network Business Club yesterday evening in a relaxed living room atmosphere and together with our guests of the to the topic of rural mobility.

Owning a private car has long since ceased to be the norm in cities. With good public transport connections, new forms of mobility such as e-scooters or ride hailing services such as Uber and Co., you can get from A to B flexibly, comfortably and quickly even without a car.

The idea of establishing free public transport is currently on everyone’s lips. But is this THE solution? Luxembourg, our neighbouring country and hardly bigger than Saarland, is leading the way and with its 600,000 inhabitants it is the first country in the world to introduce free local public transport. What do people hope to gain from the experiment?

The hours of motorised individual transport seem to be numbered – at least in the metropolises of this world! The recently published study “Mobility Futures” by the Kantar market research institute shows that by 2030 the proportion of car drivers in cities will fall from current 51% to 46%.

In times of Netflix, Spotify and Co. almost everything is shared instead of owned. It’s not surprising that this trend is not only changing our consumer behaviour but can also influence our mobility habits. Current developments show that, despite the possibility of accompanied driving from the age of 17, young people get their driving license later: In 2012, 4.6 million car driving licences were still being issued, compared with over ten percent fewer in 2017.