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?    

For a long time, the company car was considered the non-plus-ultra and was often the only mobility offer employees could expect from their employer. In 2023, more flexible mobility solutions such as digital demand-responsive company transport, job bikes and mobility budgets are gaining ground. Rising energy prices, stricter environmental and climate protection regulations as well as greater sustainability awareness among employees are also contributing to the need for companies to rethink their corporate mobility management.

A mobility guarantee is

55 million German citizens living in suburban and rural areas do not have access to attractive public transport offerings. This was the result of our mobility analysis of public transport in Ger-many. But what about public transport in England, Wales and Scotland? Our transport planners investigated this question. Around 450,000 weekday trips from timetables of over 300,000 stops in England, Wales and Scotland were analysed. The result: in all three parts of the country (except London), less than 20 per cent of the population have access to attractive public transport.

In the previous edition of “Mobility Turn, now!” we looked at the measures taken by the state of Hesse to enable citizens to travel in a climate-friendly way by local transport. This time we are taking a closer look at Baden-Wuerttemberg.   

A local public transport plan is a planning instrument in which all performance and quality criteria for the operation of local public transport in an area are acquired. The local transport plan analyses the existing mobility offer and serves as a guideline for the future development of local mobility. 

The mobility turn cannot be achieved without digital and forward-looking mobility offers. The goal “more mobility with less traffic” can only be realized by the merging of different digital technologies. One key element in this effort can be autonomous vehicles on demand. 

65 million tons less CO2 emissions till 2030 – this is the climate goal for the German transportation industry. More electric mobility, a modernized rail network and billions for the development of public transport are supposed to contribute to the effort of Germany becoming more climate friendly.

But which measures are being taken on a federal level to enable citizens to be sustainably mobile with less ecologically harmful traffic? What progress is being made in the efforts to expand public transport, to reactivate old train tracks and to install new bike lanes? We answer these and other questions in our new blog series “Mobility turn, now!”. We want to show pioneering mobility projects in each federal state as an example for a successful and sustainable mobility turn in Germany.

When you think of the future of mobility, you see young people racing through skyscraper canyons in futuristic robot taxis in your mind’s eye. In reality, most autonomous projects do not drive sleek robot taxis in German metropolises. Instead, ponderous-looking minibuses, so-called people movers, move through narrow alleys and across marketplaces in smaller towns and rural areas. This is the case in Bad Birnbach, for example. The small town in the Lower Bavarian spa triangle, which is known for its thermal baths, has been attracting not only wellness guests but also fans and experts of new mobility since 2017. The reason for this is a small, box-like vehicle with a top speed of only 15 km/h: it is Germany’s first autonomous public bus!

Good news for all those involved in the mobility cosmos: Since July 1, 2022, it has been one for all: one platform for the exchange of all relevant mobility data. This is made possible by the Mobilithek. This new central, uniform and user-friendly access point of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport replaces the previous platforms “Mobility Data Marketplace” and “mCLOUD”.

Hanna Kops is Head of Experience at Transport for London. She leads the digital design team which is responsible for the experience strategy, innovation, and design across all digital channels for one of the largest transport systems.