Exciting: VISION mobility Think Tank 1 at Hypermotion

At the VISION mobility Think Tanks, each session focused on an exciting overarching theme, which was explored and discussed by three speakers from different industries. In the first round of talks, representing politics, was Dr. Tobias Miethaner, who heads the digital society division at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. Representing the industry, Dirk Reimelt, who oversees the topic of "Shared Mobility" in the "Future Transportation" division at Mercedes-Benz Vans, spoke. The third speaker was Dr. Michael Barillère-Scholz, responsible at DB for the development and implementation of new business models for road-based on-demand mobility. He discussed the topic from a service provider's perspective.

Interestingly, Reimelt and Barillère-Scholz met here concerning individual public transportation: At Daimler Vans, they are working with Via, a provider that supports and programs so-called "on-demand" ride-pooling. In other words, Daimler's mobility concept supports a kind of digital shared taxi concept. The focus is on offering as individualized transportation as possible, but at prices that should only be two to three times as high as corresponding public transport tickets. It was also important for Reimelt to mention that these prices should not change with high demand, similar to public transport. Analogous to Uber, where a comparable but in detail often different concept is pursued, Daimler is also tinkering with options to let such compact taxi shuttles operate autonomously in the future.

Which brought the ball to Dr. Michael Barillère-Scholz, who is thinking along similar lines at the railway: They are looking at connecting stations with on-demand services. This would mean smaller vehicle sizes and more individualized routes compared to the previously known public transport vehicles. The railway relies on both driver-based and autonomous units. The latter are currently undergoing trial operations in Bad Birnbach, Leipzig, and Berlin.

The goal of both speakers was to encourage customers to switch from private to public transport to reduce individual traffic and thus generally reduce traffic volume and travel times in particular. Furthermore, they aim to offer speed and availability similar to a private car.

Interestingly, the call for the state's involvement quickly became loud, as it must both create the legal foundations and set a framework to establish new transport systems in an orderly fashion. Dr. Miethaner is trying to initiate this process with his ministry. He described the legislation for autonomous driving and the implementation of corresponding laws on an international level as the greatest challenges. Both are areas in which Germany has already made significant progress, although the devil often lies in the details: For a seamless implementation, data from municipalities are needed on the one hand, and international harmonization on the other.

Reimelt and Barillère-Scholz agreed on this point, and the discussion round ended with a consensus: Mobility must become more digital and intelligent to accelerate it – and individual public transport could contribute significantly to this: They reduce traffic volume while still enabling (almost) the most convenient form of travel – namely, door-to-door.

What does this mean?

On the topic of digitization and intelligent traffic development, the visions of the industry, service providers, and politics are in some cases very closely aligned.