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By December 2020, public transport will be almost to the doorstep in three more districts in the greater Hamburg area. In Hamburg’s real digital mobility lab (“Reallabor Hamburg”), the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary ioki initially conducts mobility analyses for the three test regions Ahrensburg, Stormarn and Süderelbe. The most recent investigation of commuter flows and mobility behaviour in the Süderelbe region (south of the Elbe river), shows: the greatest potential for a flexible demand-responsive transport service – without fixed timetables and stops – is found in the city of Winsen in the district of Harburg. In a second step, ioki is developing the platform for the operation of the on-demand shuttles, which will start in Ahrensburg and Stormarn as well as in Winsen this year.
«Our analyses provide answers to the urgent future questions in mobility. How can we make public transport even more attractive and thus promote climate protection? With mobility analyses, we can calculate in advance where on-demand services will bring the greatest benefits. In Hamburg itself, we have already carried out several analyses and gained extensive practical experience. Now it is important that rural areas outside the Hanseatic city also benefit from new forms of mobility,» says ioki CEO Dr. Michael Barillère-Scholz.
For the selection in the southern metropolitan region of Hamburg, ioki analysed about one million journeys in the districts of Harburg, Stade and Lüneburg. The focus was on private car journeys. The result: Around 70 percent of all journeys in Winsen run directly from the front door to the final destination. The remaining 30 percent are so-called feeder rides, for example to the train station and from there on by train. These individual commuter car journeys could be intelligently bundled and quickly integrated into the climate-friendly local public transport system by means of a demand-responsive transport service. The more convenient and individual connection to the existing rail and bus network will make the public mobility offer more attractive, even for the first group of people who have so far only chosen the car.
«For Winsen and parts of the Winsener Elbmarsch, the new offer is a double benefit: Thanks to the sustainable transport concept, we are relieving the roads in the region, offering people a mobility alternative and thus making their lives easier. In this way, we are increasing the attractiveness of the Süderelbe region and strengthening economic power and the quality of living,» says Rainer Rempe, District Administrator of the District of Harburg.
First and foremost, the Elbmarsches and the surrounding communities will have a much better connection to the Winsen city area and thus also to the rail link to Hamburg. According to the calculations, a large added value can be generated with only five vehicles. This is because the on-demand shuttles will be integrated into the existing local public transport system. From the end of 2020, passengers will use the smartphone app developed by ioki to enter their starting point and destination and receive the shuttle’s departure and arrival times. On the way, passengers with similar destinations will be able to board the shuttle. The so-called ridepooling enables an optimal utilization of the vehicles and relieves the roads and environment.
The analysis for the city of Ahrensburg with mobility and operation simulations, environmental evaluation and a system comparison of the area and line traffic is currently still ongoing. The results will be presented in autumn. A comparable evaluation was carried out for the Stormarn district. Since July 2018, ioki has been testing the use of on-demand transport as part of the public transport system in the Hamburg districts of Lurup, Os-dorf and Billbrook.
