Are door-to-door connections the future of local transport?

The Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV) has started several pilot projects in its area to try out exactly that.

This should make the use of public transport more attractive and come very close to private transport.

If you want to get from A to B, you can use an app to request a vehicle using so-called on-demand traffic (on request).

The customer should have to wait a maximum of 15 minutes before he can start his journey, possibly alone or with others who have the same route.

The virtual stops are designed in such a way that the buses always stop in the immediate vicinity of your front door.

Funding problems and good response

But the sword of Damocles of financing is hanging over the model tests, which are supposed to eventually become part of normal traffic.

Therefore, during the first pilot project in the district of Groß-Gerau, which has now started in Kelsterbach, District Administrator Thomas Will (SPD) called on the state and federal government to better promote new offers in the future in the sense of the traffic turnaround and also the on-demand Financially secure traffic, because the municipalities have reached their limits.

Kelsterbach's Mayor Manfred Ockel (SPD) is hoping for a good response during the model test.

The small electric buses are significantly more environmentally friendly than the large buses, which often travel around the city with only a few passengers on board.

There is little doubt that the new offer will be accepted by the population.

Because in the seven model tests of the RMV, more than 270,000 passengers have been registered so far.

According to the RMV, the offer achieved 4.9 out of five possible points in the user rating.

For the RMV, driving to order is to become a third mainstay on a permanent basis.

So far, the transport association has created the largest on-demand network in Germany with its pilot projects.

If the trial in Kelsterbach is a success, according to District Administrator Thomas Will, there should be such offers in all municipalities in the district.

In order to achieve the traffic turnaround, the infrastructure must be right, the use of local public transport must be barrier-free and the networking between local transport services must work better.

This also included uniform tickets that you can use to travel across the country without having to buy new tickets at different tariffs wherever another transport association is responsible.

More expensive than bus travel but cheaper than taxi

Four electric vehicles will be launched in Kelsterbach, one of which will be converted to make it suitable for the disabled.

They call themselves SIGGI liners and use them to depict the letters on the license plates.

If you want to use the offer, you first have to load an app specially developed by the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary “ioki” onto your mobile phone, which makes it difficult for older people who are not very familiar with it to use the on-demand shuttle power.

The vehicles are ordered via this app.

An algorithm determines whether further travel requests with the same destination have been registered on the requested route, so that carpooling can also occur.

Payment is also made via the app, with holders of an RMV ticket for Kelsterbach paying one euro per trip.

If you don't have an RMV card, for example a weekly or monthly ticket for buses or trains, you have to pay 3.35 euros per trip.

Although this is more expensive than taking the regular bus, it is significantly cheaper than a taxi.

"SIGGI" runs from 4 October on Sundays to Thursdays from 9 a.m. to midnight and on Fridays, Saturdays and before public holidays from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m.

The minibuses are operated on behalf of the local transport company (LNG) of the Groß-Gerau district, which, assuming there is appropriate financing and demand, wants to gradually expand the offer to the entire district, as Managing Director Christian Sommer said.