European Public Transport Conference
Mobility creates Opportunities
21 May 2019
Erfurt, Germany

Programme

9.30 – Opening and Politician's Forum

• Welcome address by the State Secretary of the Thuringian Ministry of Infrastructure and Agriculture, Dr. Klaus Sühl

  The Thuringian Ministry of Infrastructure and Agriculture welcomes all participants to the European Transport Conference: Mobility creates opportunities on 21 May 2019 in Erfurt.

  

• Keynote address: "Systematic planning of public transport as a basis for tariff and ticket integration" by Prof. em. Heiner Monheim

  Heiner Monheim. Prof. em. for Applied Geography, Spatial Development and Regional Planning at the University of Trier, Germany. Co-owner of the raumkom Institute for Spatial Development and Communication in Trier. Extensive practical experience in spatial and traffic planning at municipal, state and federal level. Crossover professionalist between science, planning, public relations and practice.

  

• Politicians’ forum: SubNodes-regions report on their challenges in regards to hinterland connection

  Be it Thuringia, South Moravia, Greater Poland, East and West Slovenia, the Bratislava region or Lombardy - all are crossed by at least one trans-European rail corridor. And all are faced with the task to forward the associated accessibility gains to the hinterland. The following representatives report on the results, which already have been achieved, on the challenges, which still exist:
  
  - Dr. Klaus Sühl, State Secretary in the Thuringian Ministry of Infrastructure and Agriculture, DE
  - Claudia Maria Terzi, Minister for Infrastructures, Transport and Sustainable Mobility of Lombardy Region, IT
  - Harald Henning Head of the district authority of County of Soemmerda, DE
  - Miloš Pregl, Secretary for public passenger transport policy in the Slowenian Ministry of Infratsructure, SI
  - Zuzana Horčíková, Director of Bratislava Integrated Transport, SK
  - Květoslav Havlík, Deputy Director of South Moravian Integrated Public Transport, CZ
  
  Moderation: Prof. Dr. Mathias Gather, FH Erfurt

  

13.00 – Parallel Sessions

Panel I: Transport associations – beneficial or dispensable?

• Added value because of cooperation? Experiences from transport associations in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Mr. Torsten Liebig, Ministry for Transport Baden-Wuerttemberg (DE)

  In the age of mobility 4.0 it is necessary to plan and implement mobility as a service. For many years, Baden-Württemberg has had a nationwide system of 22 transport associations offering local and regional attractive tariff offers for the population. Due to changed mobility habits, which are characterized by longer distances and in particular multimodal use of mobility offers, many of the transport associations, in particular the so-called 7 district associations face the challenge of realigning themselves. At the end of 2018, the Land Baden-Wuerttemberg and the railway undertakings founded the Baden-Wuerttemberg Tarifgesellschaft. It covers the 22 associations and provides for one single ticket for long distance journeys crossing several associational boundaries. With the aid of a simultaneous, up to 50% reduction in tariffs, financed by the Land Baden-Wuerttemberg, a very attractive offer was established. This successful cooperation of the 22 associations with the Baden-Wuerttemberg Tarifgesellschaft is to be extended to season tickets (weekly, monthly, annual tickets) in a second step.
  
  About the speaker:
  Torsten Liebig, 30 years old, studied Political, Middle Eastern and Administrative Sciences in Jena, Lille, Montpellier, Marburg and Paris and completed the training at the École Nationale d'Administration (Doctorate Louise Weiss). After having worked as a freelancer for the Federal Foreign Office of Germany in Berlin for one year, he has been working in the unit of Strategic Development and Public Transport of the Ministry of Transport of Baden-Wuerttemberg since 2018. There he is responsible for the implementation of the public transport financial reform, the future of transport associations, the further development of revenue sharing and social standards in public transport.

  

• FAIRTIQ – Public transport made easy! System boundaries in the age of mobile ticketing?, Mr. Dr. Gian-Mattia Schucan, FAIRTIQ (CH)

  Understanding public transport tariffs and buying tickets are often a major hurdle for customers to use public transport. The lecture will show how these problems can be solved quickly with a so-called check-in / check-out solution à la FAIRTIQ. On the one hand, the example of Switzerland shows how well the customers respond to this solution, and on the other hand, what conditions must be met in a country like Thuringia in order to launch it. In addition, the perspectives are discussed, which, thanks to this technology, open up for the further development of marketing and pricing.
  
  About the speaker:
  Gian-Mattia Schucan is the founder and CEO of FAIRTIQ AG - public transport made easy! Originally a physicist, he has become the real expert in selling tickets in public transport. His many years of Leading Sales Manager and Member of the Management Board of SBB Personenverkehr (Passenger Traffic Division of Swiss Federal Railways) and his consulting work at McKinsey and at his own company schucan management, have laid the foundation for the founding of FAIRTIQ. FAIRTIQ was founded in 2016 is a fast-growing startup based in Bern.

  

Panel II: Tariffs – flat rates or target group orientation?

• Between user financing and customer acquisition: innovative tariff approaches for regional public transport, Mr. Gerhard Probst, Probst & Consorten (DE)

  - Unity is not an end in itself: the bigger the area covered by a transport association the better?
  - Approaches to tariff activations without financing problems
  - Current case studies for offensive tariff strategies
  
  About the speaker:
  Gerhard Probst. Managing Director Probst & Consorten Marketing Consulting, Dresden (Gemany) and lecturer at the Institute of Transport Economics and Logistics of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Proven expertise in the development of marketing, customer loyalty and value for money strategies for transport companies and associations in both urban and regional transport.

  

• The annual ticket for 365 € – a success story?, Mr. Alfred Almeder, Wiener Linien (AT)

  - Vienna's massive public transport share and its reasons
  - Consequences of the "freezing of tariffs"
  - Sustainability of ecology, social responsibility and profitability
  
  About the speaker:
  Alfred Almeder has been working for the Wiener Linien for more than 30 years on tariffs and sales. In this role, he is confronted with the task of reconciling the following aspects:
  Revenue maximization due to economic necessity,
  practiced customer proximity, and
  meeting contemporary requirements.

  

Panel III: Ticketing – customer- or administrative-oriented?

• Adding instead of integrating - cross-tariff ticketing with the “FahrPlaner” Niedersachsen/Bremen, Mr. Marcel Puppa, Niedersachsentarif GmbH (DE)

  From December 2018 on, for the first time ever, a ticketing system has been set up in Lower Saxony (Germany), as well as in the city states of Bremen and Hamburg, which sells bus-rail travel chains throughout a booking process without any integration of tariffs. The new mobile application will make it possible to book not only the regional tariff (Lower Saxony tariff), but also any other regional or bus fares.
  
  About the speaker:
  Marcel Puppa has been working in the industry since 2009. Initially as passenger supervisor and instructor for passenger supervisors at the metronom railway company. Later in the same company in revenue management and responsible for all questions regarding tariff, sales and revenue sharing. Since 2014, he has been working for the tariff division of NITAG (Lower Saxony Tariff GmbH) and has been the project leader of the project "Integration of the Lower Saxony Tariff into the FahrPlaner".

  

• Mobility Data Analytics by smartphone: Automatic ticketing, MaaS und more, Ms. Thuy Chinh Duong, MotionTag GmbH (DE)

  MotionTag develops software that uses smart phone sensor technology in conjunction with machine learning to identify where, when, in which means of transport and even with which purpose people are traveling - across all transport modes. On this basis, operators of transport services can get to know the mobility behaviour of their customers much more accurately - automatically, in detail and live - and thus develop tailor-made offers for them.
  
  About the speaker:
  Thuy Chinh Duong directs the product development at MotionTag, a technology startup for smartphone-based mobility data analytics in Potsdam (Germany). For several years she had worked internationally as a strategy consultant at KCW. Her Clients were public transport authorities interested in distribution and digitization Topics. She also accompanied innovation projects as a trainer and coach for Design Thinking.

  

14.45 Closing Plenary

• Closing plenary: Reflection on the sessions and outlook

  Together with all speakers, we look at the discussions in the panels and draw a conclusion on the question of how organisation, tariff and ticketing can promote integrated public transport.
  
  Moderation: Prof. Dr. Mathias Gather, FH Erfurt

  

15.45 – Excursions

• Excursion 1: ICE node und ICE-city Erfurt

  With the completion of the German Unity Transport Project 8 (VDE 8) Thuringia is the fast center of Germany and the main station of the Thuringian capital Erfurt an important railway node in the middle of the Federal Republic. Here the ICE lines Hamburg - Berlin - Munich and Dresden - Frankfurt intersect with connection to the region. Every day, 80 ICE trains with more than 40,000 passengers stop in Erfurt.
  
  A new district is being built around the main train station in Erfurt - the ICE City Erfurt. High quality real estate, commercial buildings and
  generous green areas are planned. Based on an urban development master plan, new opportunities for working, living and working will be created on an area the size of around 30 football fields.
  
  Mr. Torsten Wilson, Assistant to the DB AG Corporate Representative for the Federal States of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, reports on the development and effects of the VDE 8 with the node Erfurt.
  
  Mr. Paul Börsch, Head of the Office for Urban Development and Urban Planning of the City of Erfurt, explains the visions and the current status of the urban developments at the Erfurt main train station and its surroundings.

  

• Excursion 2: Industrial and commercial area „Erfurter Kreuz”

  The industrial area "Erfurter Kreuz", less than 20 km away from the Federal state’s capital, is the largest industrial area of Thuringia. Since the start of its development in 2005, globally operating companies have located within very short time. Together with immediately adjacent commercial and industrial areas, it forms an industrial site with a size of approx. 6 km², which employs more than 8,000 people in about 100 companies.
  
  The public transport connection of this large industrial area in the vicinity of the railway hub Erfurt was already taken into consideration by the local economy and the municipalities at an early stage.
  
  Representatives of the city of Arnstadt and the district authority Ilm-County report on practical experiences in the conception, implementation and continuous development of public transport.

  

Registration

Contact

Melanie Tulke & Dr. Klaus Bongartz
Thüringian Ministry of Infrastructure and Agriculture
unit 51 | spatial and federal state planning
Werner-Seelenbinder-Str. 8 | 99096 Erfurt | Germany
phone: +49 (0) 361 57-4191 318 or 312
e-mail: konferenz@tmil.thueringen.de