Innovation made in Karlsruhe live in Barcelona
Joint stand of the Karlsruhe Mobility Lab and Karlsruhe delegation at the UITP Global Public Transport Summit
From 4 to 7 June 2023, the who's who of public transport from all over the world will meet in Barcelona for the UITP Global Public Transport Summit, the leading event on sustainable mobility. The Karlsruhe Mobility Lab, an association of institutions and companies from the TechnologyRegion Karlsruhe (TRK), will be on board. 15 partners, transport companies as well as representatives from business, academia, and the public sector, will present both Karlsruhe as a hub of innovation and their projects - from autonomous driving to artificial intelligence in public transport - at a joint stand. Also present in Barcelona will be a congress delegation led by Karlsruhe’s Lord Mayor Dr. Frank Mentrup, TRK Managing Director Jochen Ehlgötz and Britta Wirtz, Managing Director of Messe Karlsruhe.
Mayor Dr. Frank Mentrup comments: "It needs future-oriented mobility concepts if the transport revolution is to succeed - for the climate, the environment and a better quality of life in urban areas. Karlsruhe offers a climate of innovation in which actors from business, science and the public sector jointly develop solutions for sustainable mobility. We are pleased that we can once again showcase the fruits of this cooperation internationally at the UITP Global Public Transport Summit, after the Karlsruhe network with its interdisciplinary projects already gained international recognition at the last summit in Stockholm."
Experience future mobility first hand: from AI to automated driving
At the joint stand, attendees can explore the massive progress in flexible and sustainable transport of people and goods in practice: highlights at the stand are exhibits such as the e-trailer of the LogIKTram project of the partner KAMO: Karlsruhe Mobility High Performance Center/Profilregion. The trailer is part of a logistics concept for freight transport on the last mile. It is precisely this last mile that the second KAMO project DAKIMO also tackles to make sustainable and intermodal mobility more attractive through artificial intelligence (AI). The MobileCityGame, a collaborative project led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, is pursuing the same goal with an app that trade visitors can test at the stand. The serious game on the mobility transition offers urban developers, NGOs, and science an intuitive tool for testing low-carbon, reliable and affordable mobility in cities.
On site in Barcelona, the FZI Research Center for Information Technology brings the technologies behind its autonomous FZI shuttles and the Autonomous Driving Test Site Baden-Württemberg to life: In a demonstrator, FZI experts visualise interactive control centre views and provide unique insights into the infrastructure and communication of the various technical systems. A team around Prof. Dr.-Ing. Eric Sax from the Institute for Information Processing Technology at KIT, led by M.Sc. Nicole Kechler, presents the TEMPUS project on city bus platooning in Munich. Platooning enables vehicles to automatically follow the lane of a lead vehicle at a short distance. Through this technology, operations can be adapted to passenger numbers as demand requires, become more automated and thus more economical.
On site from the Karlsruhe Mobility Lab are also other partners of the hub, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the PTV Group, TransportTechnologie-Consult Karlsruhe GmbH, AVG – Albtal Transport Company, INIT GmbH, Karlsruhe Transport Network, the City of Karlsruhe, the UITP Regional Training Centre Karlsruhe and the Karlsruhe Transport Company. Organisors of the joint stand are TechnologyRegion Karlsruhe GmbH and Messe Karlsruhe.
Jochen Ehlgötz, Managing Director of TRK: "Thanks to its partners, the Karlsruhe Mobility Lab has become a globally recognised centre for intelligent concepts in the field of urban and regional mobility. One main focus is to continuously improve local public transport and develop new mobility concepts. Together, all players contribute significantly to the global mobility transition." Dr Alexander Viehl, Division Head at FZI adds: "FZI is a leader in the field of connected autonomous driving and intelligent digital infrastructure for new mobility concepts. The UITP Global Summit is a very special platform for FZI to showcase its technological skills as well as its applications and expertise in automated public transport."
About the Karlsruhe Mobility Lab
Based in one of Germany's central mobility and technology centres, the Karlsruhe Mobility Lab is a globally recognised hub for the development of intelligent concepts for the urban and regional mobility of the future. Science, business, the public sector, and innovative transport companies work together in an interdisciplinary way in this unique ecosystem to improve public transport and develop new mobility concepts. The focus is on intelligent, connected, resource-efficient and sustainable mobility that reconciles environmental friendliness and mobility comfort.
Much has already been achieved in the Karlsruhe Mobility Lab - from a convenient mobility platform that integrates individually usable means of transport such as car and bike sharing as well as intermodal traffic control, to autonomous first/last mile services in on-demand transport, cross-border mobility solutions, an extensive network of cycle paths and innovative fast cycle lanes and, last but not least, the Karlsruhe Tram Train Model, which has received worldwide attention.
