In a futuristic Berlin loft, including a view of the Spree, the Moovel employees stood around Dr. Randolf Wöhrl, Head of Strategic Partnerships, questions and answers. The idea of flexible, needs-based traffic (dynamic on-demand ridesharing) is not new and is already known from the VW Moia project from Hanover. The concepts are intended to close the gap between local public transport and taxi services in the inner cities of the future.
It's the same every time: how do you get home at this hour?
Who does not know it? Actually, you just wanted to have a chat with friends and it was a bit later. With too little cash for a taxi and no own vehicle in the vicinity, the trip home must be started via public transport. Even in cities like Berlin, where the public transport network is very well developed, there are still so-called "white areas" here and there in which the traffic of public transport companies occurs only sporadically. This is where Moovel comes in. Armed with the smartphone, a shuttle can be ordered via the in-house app. Order shuttle? Admittedly, that does not sound very innovative, but the clou is the concept of "dynamic on-demand ride sharing". To start the journey one chooses one of the many virtual stops that Moovel himself specifies, but which are always within walking distance. If there are now other passengers who want to drive a similar route, the Moovel algorithm recognizes this and bundles the passengers - "Pooling". The fact that several passengers share a vehicle - "Ridesharing", this concept offers a more economical alternative to the taxi and at the same time protects the environment. The artificial intelligence calculates for each individual for each passenger the optimal start and end stop, as well as the respective travel and arrival time. To get from A to B as quickly as possible, the routes are continuously fed with real-time data from the road and the public transport network. As if that were not enough, the algorithm can make a demand forecast. For this purpose, it bundles similar travel wishes and thus enables efficient and predictive fleet management.
Mobility on demand in cooperation with the transport companies
The current objective of Moovel is to enable Stuttgarters to offer a better public transport service, especially in areas or at times that are not sufficiently developed with previous offers. The Daimler subsidiary has been working very closely with Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG (SSB) since 2012 in order to be able to additionally guarantee tariff integration and intermodality. A first six-month test in the city of Stuttgart was successful with 20.000 riders. Strengthened by the result, the new offer SSB Flex was initiated on 1.Juni.
SSB Flex closes the gap between public transport and taxi. It offers additional intermodal journeys in Stuttgart on the basis of a multimodal app. Passengers can easily get to the nearest public transport stop by Flex-Shuttle to cover a path more directly or earlier, or to make the journey between the bus stop and front door more comfortable.
Looking to the future
Back to Berlin Loft. There leads Dr. Randolf Wöhrl during the one and a half hour event in the Moovel world. Markus Lehmann, Software Architect and Artificial Intelligence Manager, behind the Moovel-on-demand algorithm, highlights the benefits AI has over people and how Moovel takes advantage of it. Finally, Dr. Ilja Radusch, Head of Automotive Services and Communication Technologies of the Frauenhofer Institute FOKUS, gives an insight into the possible future of mobility in the networked and automated cities of tomorrow. At present, Berlin's Reinickendorf district is testing the precise environmental perception and localization in city traffic on a digital test field.
How the future will look in the end remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is the increasing passenger traffic in urban centers as urbanization progresses. This is a major challenge, especially for public transport. Moovel offers a future-oriented, possible solution with its app and its algorithm - the efficient combination of various mobility offers.