Dresden. The demand is there, but the money is missing: two and a half years after the launch of the Mobi shuttle in Dresden, the Dresden Transport Authority (DVB) will discontinue the on-demand ride service at the end of the year. In the test phase, which has been running since June 2022, more than 300,000 passengers used the service, which flanks buses and trains in the Klotzsche, Pieschen and Neustadt districts. The DVB are satisfied with the figures. But because the federal government and the Free State no longer support the project and the city alone cannot afford it, the service is now coming to an end.
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The Mobi-Shuttle is intended as a supplement where there are gaps in the bus and train services. The vehicles can be requested via app between 4 a.m. and 1 a.m. and travel in the urban areas listed without a fixed route or timetable. Up to four passengers can be transported in one car, and wheelchair users can also be accommodated. Software registers the orders and combines travel requests on similar routes. The passengers are picked up one by one and driven to their destination.
Mobi shuttle with an average of 550 trips per day
During the test phase, the transport company’s experts analyzed the project in detail. Almost every second trip could therefore be bundled with additional passengers. The average user is 39 years old, but pensioners have also regularly taken advantage of the offer. The most common purposes of the trips were to go to work or for leisure purposes. While initially not even 100 users ordered a Mobi-Shuttle per day, today there are 550, more than five times as many. Another positive effect: around 20 percent of all trips were previously made in your own car.
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To ensure that the Mobi-Shuttle is not just used as an inexpensive taxi, the prices for the ride are calculated dynamically according to various criteria. If there is no tram or bus connection on the chosen route, it remains cheap. DVB subscription customers enjoy special advantages; in the best case, there are no additional costs for passengers. However, if a route is chosen parallel to bus or tram lines, the price increases significantly. The DVB wants to create incentives to actually only use the Mobi-Shuttle as a feeder or supplement to buses and trains.
The federal and state governments supported the project with over four million euros
To operate the 13 cars in the Mobi-Shuttle fleet – all purely electric vehicles – the Dresden public transport company initially brought the now insolvent ride service provider Clever Shuttle on board in 2022. After the bankruptcy in November 2023, the Via company took over the driving operations. The company also developed and provided the software for the project.
The pilot project was only limited to a total of three years anyway – including the six-month preparation phase. The following two and a half year test operation costs a total of six and a half million euros. The Federal Ministry of Transport in Berlin contributed around half of the sum, and the Free State contributed a further 780,000 euros. Further funds came from the city budget or were made available within the Technical Works Dresden (TWD) – which includes DVB as well as the supplier SachsenEnergie.
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However, the two major donors, the federal and state governments, had indicated that they no longer wanted to support the project. In order to continue Mobi-Shuttle, the city would have to raise the financial resources from its own resources, which is considered unlikely given the current budget situation. In addition, there would have to be a corresponding majority in the city council for the resolution, which is also not to be expected with the new composition. In the past, representatives of various political groups had repeatedly questioned the transport companies’ mobile offerings – which also include the very successful bike sharing and car sharing.
DNN
