The young mobility network takes over the stage

The Young Mobility Network (YMN), a network organisation for young professionals in the mobility sector, has over 300 members throughout Germany. The organisation was established in 2020. It currently operates regional hubs in several cities including Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt/Main and Munich, where participants organise regular meetings or visit flagship projects such as the Ottobahn or the MOIA ridesharing service together.

At BUS2BUS, Max Beitler, Event & Partnership Manager at the Young Mobility Network, gave the audience the opportunity to network on the Deep Dive Stage. This is precisely what the organisation is about: bringing together young talents from the mobility sector, facilitating an exchange of views, and empowering and advancing projects together.

In his keynote speech, Linus Frank, founder and managing director of Vesputi, showed how public transport can become more attractive with digital solutions. His company offers a standardised API for digital public transport tickets. Frank sees many scenarios where public transport can become even more attractive. What if tourists could book their public transport ticket along with their hotel room, just like breakfast or a hire car, for example? Or if people identified more with public transport, so that riding the bus had a cooler image? The Deutschlandticket was a step in the right direction, he said. Vesputi helps companies attract more customers with digital solutions, for example by linking scheduled services with an on-demand shuttle. Another option is bonus points for ticket purchases on platforms that are not only used by mobility providers. These new channels could also be used to reach diehard car drivers. Digital incentives could also be created if a customer wanted to cancel their ticket, for example by offering vouchers.

At the subsequent panel discussion, Kristina Grodt, coordinator of the YMN Hamburg Hub and member of the ioki sales team, appealed for networking across district boundaries to become more efficient. She was also keen to improve mobility in rural areas. Benita Katenkamp, senior consultant for Public Transport & Infrastructure at Wavestone, believed driverless vehicles were essential for advancing public transport. She saw reliable real-time data in the relevant apps as being more important than punctual services in order to reliably plan her journey. More vehicles with alternative drive systems were needed on the roads, ideally with their own bus lanes. Dr Ines Kawgan-Kagan from the AEM Institute focuses on gender and diversity in the mobility sector. She criticised that mobility concepts were often based on the category of healthy, high-income males. Not only did that impact inclusivity, it also had a negative effect later on, due to a lack of profitability, as the target group selected was too small. All participants came to the conclusion that more dialogue and networking would be good for the industry, and that shared data and experiences would advance public transport in Germany.