Mobility offers and their effects
Dear Dr. Fraedrich, at this year's CoSMoS you have the "closing words" with your striking lecture "New kids in town ... What effects do new mobility offers have on our transport systems?" Can you tell us then already who these new kids are?
Dr. Eva Fraedrich: Actually, the "new kids", to stay with the metaphor, are now almost "teenagers". Among the many offerings in which digital technologies in particular play a significant role are ride pooling and hailing, car and bike sharing, and micromobility (e.g., E-scooters ). New mobility providers have contributed to diversification and flexibility in recent years, especially in the urban mobility market. In doing so, they want to and should also contribute to making mobility more efficient, more comfortable, but also more affordable and climate-friendly. In the future, the focus will also increasingly be on how these services as a whole can be designed and integrated into the urban transport system in such a way that they complement existing public transport services and help reduce motorized private transport.
Ride Pooling Service to Reduce Private Transport
You are a Senior Researcher Mobility at MOIA GmbH, a young mobility company of Volkswagen AG that offers innovative mobility services for cities. Currently, you are developing a new ride pooling service - can you briefly outline this service for us?
Dr. Eva Fraedrich: With ride pooling, people share a vehicle who have a similar route. Customers send a ride request via app, and our dynamic algorithm ensures in a fraction of a second that MOIA users with a similar path can ride together. Throughout the ride, more people hop on and off. By bundling trips that users would have otherwise driven alone, we aim to help reduce personal transportation and avoid emissions. Those who use our MOIA service (currently in Hamburg and Hanover) travel through the city comfortably, cheaply and in an environmentally friendly way.
Successful mobility concepts
A lot is currently happening in terms of mobility, especially in major cities like Berlin, Hamburg or Munich. What do new concepts have to offer to be successful and accepted? How does MOIA GmbH score with its service?
Dr. Eva Fraedrich: New mobility providers should, to be sustainably successful, address different challenges: They must fit the goals of urban and transportation planning. And they must be developed closely along the needs and requirements of the users. With our ride pooling service, which is geared to these challenges and requirements, we create attractive incentives for city dwellers to leave their cars behind. In addition, we see ourselves as a partner of cities and public transport and thus help to solve traffic problems such as air pollution, congestion, noise and lack of space and to achieve sustainability goals.
Thank you, Dr. Fraedrich, and see you soon in Ingolstadt!
Event note: CoSMoS 2020 I March 10, 2020 I Ingolstadt