The recently announced partnership between ioki and Vesputi promises innovations in the field of mobility services. Passengers can now buy their tickets directly in the on-demand apps from ioki. But what does this actually look like in reality? We spoke to Henrik Umnus, Managing Director of the Verkehrsbetrieb Greifswald GmbH. A year ago, the on-demand service “Friedrich” took to the streets of Greifswald and has been transporting passengers without a fixed timetable ever since. Now passengers can book their public transport tickets directly in the on-demand app. Have fun reading!

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.

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.

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.

Since 2015, a dial a ride service (call-collective-taxi or in German Anruf-Sammel-Taxi, AST) has supplemented public transport in Limburg, Hesse. In 2021, the AST was digitalised by an on-demand service called LahnStar. ioki insights spoke to Michael Stanke, first councillor of the city of Limburg and operations manager of the Limburg city line, and Hicham Azzou, head of the public transport department, about the development of the AST into on-demand mobility. The LahnStar is part of the OnDeMo project of the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsbund (RMV).   

Since 2021 the urban railway, called S-Bahn in German, in Stuttgart relies on a flexible rail replacement bus system operating on demand whenever modernisation work is undertaken on the main line. This is possible with on demand software powered and developed by ioki. ioki insights talked to Dr. Dirk Rothenstein, who is the chairman of the S-Bahn Stuttgart management board, about modernising the rail infrastructure, multimodal mobility in the city and the rail replacement services on demand.  

Martin Neubauer has already made several stops in the mobility sector. He has been with PostBus for two years now, where he is responsible for the business area of autonomous driving. Since the end of 2020, he has also held his mandate as Executive Director of the Swiss Association for Autonomous Mobility.

Joachim Rodenkirch has been the mayor of the district town of Wittlich since 2009. A town with 20,000 inhabitants, which offers almost as many jobs, making Wittlich the economic powerhouse between Trier and Koblenz. Rodenkirch studied forestry, is a member of the district council and represents the interests of medium-sized towns on the board of the Rhineland-Palatinate Association of Towns and Cities. As mayor he has both witnessed and promoted many developments in the city. In 2018 the innovative project Wittlich Shuttle was launched.

Dr. Olga Nevska is Managing Director at Telekom MobilitySolutions. As a full-service provider and wholly owned subsidiary of Telekom, Telekom MobilitySolutions provides a comprehensive range of efficient, economical and sustainable mobility services tailored to customer needs. The portfolio ranges from classic fleet solutions with vehicles tailored to customer needs, including expansions, to employee mobility solutions.

With a doctorate in economics and law, she has been working for Deutsche Telekom AG in various positions since 2009: Controlling and Commercial both in Germany and internationally.