In the big city of Frankfurt, life is not very difficult without your own car: a dense network of public transport, rental bicycles, scooters, e-bikes and car sharing offers has long made it possible.

Things look completely different in the surrounding area, in the small towns and villages, but even in so-called medium-sized centers such as Rüsselsheim, which has just under 66,000 inhabitants, you can often not get along without your own car in everyday life because there are hardly any alternatives.

Franziska Weiser has been working with the software developer Norbert Ritz-Schmidt and ten other employees for more than a year on solving the problem.

She studied international industrial engineering and, as an employee at TÜV Rheinland, has already dealt a lot with digital technologies and urban mobility.

"Basic human need"

This is now flowing into your start-up Carré Mobility.

"Studies have shown that your own car is actually just standing around for 23.5 hours a day," she says.

She herself consistently rides her bike and public transport.

However, your own company is now also targeting the needs of people who cannot be so sporty on the road.

“Mobility is a basic human need” is the central idea at Carré Mobility.

It is therefore based on three elements: self-driving with shared and borrowed cars, e-bikes or cargo bikes that are to be stationed decentrally in neighborhoods, riding in car pools and bringing everyday items with you as a neighborhood service.

All of this is controlled by a simple smartphone application.

“If necessary, the grandson can do this from another location if the grandma doesn't have a smartphone,” she says.

The corona pandemic has so far slowed down the ride.

The self-drive option is now expected to start in mid-July - initially with an electric car, four pedelecs and two cargo bikes, which are to be deposited in front of a neighborhood center and come from local dealers.

The car then costs 20 cents a minute.

If you turn it off for a moment and then continue driving, the price for the downtime drops.

A pedelec costs half, and there are also day or weekend flat rates.

The connection to the neighborhood is important to the young entrepreneurs, which is why they also work with the municipal housing company and a neighborhood center and offer introductory events with explanations there.

They also started a pilot project of this kind in Berlin, and the experience gained is now being incorporated into the Rüsselsheim project.

The offers there are used by both the elderly and many young families.

At the moment, the focus of activities is on helping with shopping.

“That has become much more important during the pandemic.” The app has been available in Rüsselsheim since January.

Anyone who needs something and cannot get it alone and without a car, enters what is needed in a kind of shopping list.

Anyone who is already out and about for bulk purchases reports as a helper and brings everything with them.

With a purchase value of 100 euros, there are four euros to bring with you, three euros for the operator of the app, so the customer pays 107 euros.

The maximum fee is eight euros.

To ensure that everything runs correctly when paying, the company works with an escrow account at GLS Bank.

The operators quickly learned that it would not work without a financial incentive for buyers.

Pick up speed

"At the moment, the number of people who bring something to each other is only in the hundreds," says Weiser.

But now the project should pick up speed.

“Mobility doesn't just mean getting from A to B,” says Weiser.

She realized that when her own grandmother suddenly couldn't do the shopping herself.

The founders were awarded the German Mobility Prize for their concept in October 2020, with 300 ideas to choose from.

“We don't want to be the thousand and first sharing provider, but rather work in catchment areas where there are hardly any convenient alternatives to one's own vehicle.”

Ideally, the path to the shared vehicle should not be further than that to your own car.

In surveys, two thirds of those questioned said that they would like to take advantage of such an offer.