When the autonomous bus comes on demand

It quickly became clear during the panel discussion that there is more at stake than just the question of whether people get from A to B by car or bus ‘Access instead of dependence. New mobility concepts for rural areas’. ‘There's the car and maybe the bicycle and local public transport, but that only runs once in the morning and once in the evening – you can't really talk about mobility in rural areas,’ said futurologist Stefan Carsten.

According to Carsten, people's perception of how they participate in traffic, their social participation and how the economy works in rural areas is based on the most expensive means of transport by far, the car. ‘The feeling remains that the state is leaving us alone here.’ In regions where public transport does not function efficiently, extreme parties benefit. A functioning public transport system contributes to prosperity across the board, explained the futurologist.

Part of public services

But what might that look like? Maximilian Rohs is Public Transport Leader at PwC Germany, where he heads up the Infrastructure and Mobility division, and he advocates new, more flexible models that literally pick people up where they are. Such door-to-door on-demand solutions should be the backbone of services in rural areas and replace rudimentary scheduled services. ‘Of course, this is a cost factor. But public transport is part of public services. We don't say that water, roads and power lines are too expensive,’ argues Rohs.

Sonya Herrmann, head of the e-mobility programme at Hamburg transport company vhh.mobility, already has experience with such on-demand services. Hamburg has almost 50 vehicles in operation in the surrounding area, completing 25,000 journeys per month, called up via the transport company's app, which plans to gradually expand the service. ‘However, we also see that demand is highest during rush hour. So people use it to get to and from work. Unfortunately, we are not yet reaching senior citizens and care workers, who are particularly isolated in rural areas,’ said Herrmann. Often, local people are not sufficiently aware of the service. ‘The image in people's minds is still that if you work and are physically fit, you drive a car. We have to work against that,’ said the transport expert.

Men will only be passengers in the future

One model that could counteract this is autonomous driving, which could offer flexible mobility almost around the clock. ‘Better public transport is possible, but not necessarily cheaper,’ said PwC expert Rohs. Although autonomous vehicles would save on driver costs, the billions invested in development would first have to be recouped.

The first pilot projects are already underway, but when will autonomous buses become a reality in rural areas? In ten years, in 20 years? The panel did not want to commit itself. All it said was that it would take some time. But then, according to futurologist Carsten, there would be more cyclists than ever before, ‘because the roads would be safe for the first time and traffic would be efficiently organised through autonomous driving’. And he provocatively added: ‘At some point, we men will also be banned from driving cars. Because we are far too dangerous.’