Stefan jumped on the ioki wagon about two years ago and has been Senior Product Manager at ioki ever since. As a trained mechanical engineer, he has also held positions in management consulting and as a product owner and product manager in industry. At ioki, he came into contact with the mobility industry for the first time and is currently dealing with the most important questions about our new product ioki Route. In this interview, he talks about his everyday life, what makes ioki Route special and what drives us at ioki. Have fun reading!

Stefan, what tasks do you deal with on a daily basis? 

In my everyday life, everything revolves around the product. From product strategy, roadmap and discovery to market analysis, business cases and pricing. We even cover marketing as a team. So it can be said that I think about the important questions for ioki Route: How, when and to whom do we offer ioki Route in order to place the product as successfully as possible.  

In doing so, I formed a unit with Julia Hellner, our ioki Route Product Owner. While she mainly interfaces with our development team, I am the contact person for our Sales, Marketing and Launch & Account Management departments. Close coordination is essential, no two days are the same! 

What is ioki Route? 

In short: ioki Route consists of an innovative navigation app for bus drivers, the ioki Route App. The counterpart is the route management software, which we call ioki Route Control, which runs through a web browser.  

If we look at the smartphone app for driving, the biggest advantages for me are the easy access to route navigation and the automatic warnings in case of danger spots. During development, it was important to us that drivers could use the app quickly. Install the app, connect to the local route database, select the bus route and vehicle type and be ready to go.  

Via the web application (ioki Route Control), information on routes, vehicle types and possible warnings can be set and forwarded to the drivers. The system is very quick to set up thanks to the support of multiple import formats, which means that the navigation data is available to bus drivers in a matter of minutes. Both the navigation app and ioki Route Control work without any special hardware – a standard Android smartphone and a web browser are sufficient. 

The connecting communication between the vehicles and the route management takes place in real time and without manual intervention.  

And the best thing about it: ioki Route is not only suitable for classic scheduled bus services but can also be used for rail replacement services. When it comes to quickly setting up and operating temporary routes, ioki Route provides reliable and safe navigation. 

Can you tell us a bit about the history of ioki Route? 

ioki Route was created back in 2022 as a result of a cooperation project with BVG. At the beginning, the focus was on the major challenge of avoiding bus accidents. About a year ago, we recognized the potential of our solution for bus transport. What started with BVG is now a universally applicable app that has developed from the market for the market and with which we are tackling real challenges in daily bus operations. In the entire planning and development of ioki Route, we always keep an eye on the outcome and want to create real added value for our customers. Through the digitalisation of navigation and the flexible solution for bus transport, we significantly shorten the training and training times of the drivers on the different lines. You no longer have to know the routes by heart and can completely rely on the signposting. This contributes to a more stable operation and supports personnel planning, e.g. in the event of high levels of sick leave.  

What drives us to develop innovative solutions? 

Basically, we define the real challenges of transport companies and develop solutions that are required by the market.  Thanks to the cooperation with BVG, for example, we were able to take the challenges into account in the first development steps and implement the planning in a tailor-made way. This proximity to the market ensures that we can create targeted digital opportunities and offer our customers the optimal solution. Always with our goal in mind, to help get passengers safely and quickly from A to B.   

Thank you, Stefan!