“With omobi, we share a vision for sustainable, flexible and intelligent mobility solutions in public transport. We contribute our expertise in the software sector and omobi its practical experience as a reliable operator of an on-demand system. Together, we can offer municipalities and districts innovative, demand-based mobility concepts for their populations,” says Dr Michael Barillère-Scholz, Managing Director and co-founder of ioki GmbH, about the collaboration with omobi.
Clemens Deyerling, co-founder and Managing Director of omobi on the cooperation with ioki: “We have a strong sparring partner in ioki. Together, we have already launched several successful on-demand projects, implemented enhancements and are constantly working on optimising them. We are not satisfied with maintaining the status quo but rather try to continuously improve our service and the passenger experience.”
Bavarian municipalities rely on on-demand transport
The on-demand service called Hoki, operating in the municipality of Holzkirchen, is a successful project. Around 38,000 passengers have used the flexible minibuses since September 2022. Neighbouring municipalities are also looking into expanding the service. ioki provides the ridepooling and routing technology for the service. omobi operates the minibuses on behalf of the municipality of Holzkirchen. The minibuses only run when they are needed. This improves local mobility in the municipality and reduces private transport.
ioki’s ridepooling and routing software has also been in use in Murnau am Staffelsee, Seehausen and Riegsee since February 2023. Passengers can book their rides via app or telephone, and the intelligent algorithm developed by ioki calculates the optimum route and pools the requests of other passengers. So far, around 75,000 people have been transported in Murnau and the surrounding area by the local operator omobi. The digital demand-responsive bus in Murnau is considered one of the flagship projects for flexible, individualised public mobility. The flexible service gained nationwide recognition following a referendum in which over 80 per cent of those who voted were in favour of continuing and expanding the local bus service.
The new digital call-a-bus service Rupi was launched in the district of Traunstein on October 1st, 2023 and is also using the on-demand technology powered by ioki. The barrier-free service is available around Lake Waging in the municipalities of Fridolfing, Kirchanschöring, Petting, Taching am See, Tittmoning and Waging am See. This service is also operated by omobi.
Both companies are driving the development of flexible and reliable mobility forward – ioki on the tech side and omobi in terms of optimising operations. ioki and omobi want to continue to work closely together in the future to provide better and more flexible access to local transport, particularly in rural areas. After all, digital demand-responsive transport as part of local public transport with a dense network of stops enables an improved public mobility for the population. Both companies work together with different partners to realise their visions: ioki is already working with various operators in Germany and Europe to implement DDRT services and omobi GmbH is partnering with other software providers.
Photocredit: © omobi
