Tail­wind for in­di­vidu­al­ised pub­lic trans­port

 |  MobilityResearchNews

Handover of the funding notification for the NeMo.bil project amounting to 17.1 million euros at the BMWK in Berlin.


Sustainable, individual and autonomous - the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) is funding the development and testing of a mobility system with cooperating vehicles for "individualised public transport" in the NeMo.bil project. Parliamentary State Secretary Michael Kellner now handed over the funding decisions amounting to 17.1 million euros to the consortium, which includes 20 partners. Afterwards, there was an exchange of ideas with Minister Robert Habeck. With this, the association Neue Mobilität Paderborn e.V., which was founded in 2022, has also reached another milestone as a partner of the project.

The aim of the three-year research project is to develop an innovative mobility system based on swarm intelligence. This system enables individualised public transport, which should also be affordable for municipalities in rural areas. For this purpose, data-based solutions and autonomous driving are combined with a new vehicle system. The latter consists of autonomously driving ultra-light vehicles ("NeMo.Cab") that collect individual people and connect and disconnect to towing vehicles ("NeMo.Pro") on core routes.

Parliamentary State Secretary Michael Kellner emphasised: "NeMo.bil adds a new concept to mobility. A system is being developed and tested for rural areas with which individual mobility can also be designed in a demand-oriented and sustainable manner in the future. In this way, public and individual transport will be merged on the basis of fully automated driving in Germany as an industrial and research location. One success factor is the scalability of the concept. We must therefore succeed now in linking the research project with a broad-based development and implementation initiative. We will support the initiators of the mobility concept politically in this challenge in the coming years.

Project initiator Prof. Dr. Thomas Tröster, holder of the Chair of Lightweight Automotive Construction at Paderborn university, made it clear: "Completely different from previous approaches, the new system will require two different vehicles. The reason for this is the extremely high energy and resource efficiency we want to achieve. That is why it will offer significant cost advantages compared to current public transport and fulfil the same comfort features as today's passenger cars." He thanked the Westphalia Foundation, which, with its funding, had made a significant contribution to setting up the consortium structures necessary for this innovative project.

Consortium leader Marcus Zwick, Managing Director of INYO Mobility, explained: "We are realising a demand-oriented, flexible and sustainable transport system for all people with and without a driving licence. We want to sustainably bring the project result into implementation and scale it widely." Cristina Brandtstetter from FIWARE Foundation pointed out: "To realise NeMo.bil, a digital platform is a key element. It can ensure intensive use of data on traffic areas and vehicles and at the same time open up new value creation structures".

"Neue Mobilität Paderborn has the potential to become a nationwide pioneer for ecologically sustainable and socially just local transport," explained Dr. Carsten Linnemann, member of the Bundestag, who had successfully campaigned for the funding in Berlin. "The strong community with many partners from business, science and our municipalities makes Neue Mobilität Paderborn unique," said the deputy chairman of Neue Mobilität Paderborn e.V., District Administrator Christoph Rüther. The association Neue Mobilität Paderborn e.V. wants to support the transport and energy turnaround with future-oriented mobility. The Paderborn region is particularly suitable for testing and implementation because more renewable energy is produced here than is consumed. Within this framework, the NeMo.bil project, funded by the BMWK with a total volume of 30 million euros, plays an important role.

The following 20 partners form the consortium for implementing the NeMo.bil project: Aspens GmbH, AVANCO Composites GmbH, BULIGHT GmbH, CADFEM Germany GmbH, CP Tech GmbH, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), dSPACE GmbH, FIWARE Foundation e.V., HOLON GmbH, INYO Mobility GmbH, LIA GmbH, Neue Mobilität Paderborn e.V., PHOENIX CONTACT E-Mobility GmbH, Poppe + Potthoff GmbH, Reisewitz GmbH & Co. KG, Augsburg University of Applied Sciences, Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences, Paderborn university, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin and Dortmund University of Technology.

Further informationen: www.nemo-bil.de

This text has been translated automatically. 

Photo (BMWK / Andreas Mertens): At the handover of funding in Berlin (from left): Thorsten Marten (Paderborn University), Member of the Bundestag Dr Carsten Linnemann, Parliamentary State Secretary Michael Kellner, consortium leader Marcus Zwick (INYO Mobility), Minister Robert Habeck, District Administrator Christoph Rüther (Neue Mobilität Paderborn e.V.), Jonathan Behm (Neue Mobilität Paderborn e.V.), Cristina Brandtstetter (FIWARE Foundation e.V.) and project initiator Thomas Tröster (Paderborn University).

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