Home to numerous household names, Stuttgart is one of the automotive industry’s most prestigious manufacturing hubs. At M:bility | Europe, a two-day event held in Stuttgart, Automotive World investigated how the city is addressing existing mobility challenges, and how technology can be deployed to improve the quality of life for its residents and visitors.
The CASE (connected, autonomous, shared and electric) megatrends are widely considered to have an inevitable impact on the developed world over the next few decades. However, radical technology shifts may not be necessary in reducing traffic-related congestion, emissions and fatalities.
Stuttgart is already a city that walks—around a quarter of all journeys are carried out by foot—and while its public transit links are far from optimised, many travel to work and play by train. Driving a vehicle into the city centre is becoming increasingly challenging, but private ownership also remains high: the city recently registered the highest number of cars on its roads for the last ten years.
In Roman times we had roads and carriages, and today’s mobility challenges have not changed much since then. We really need to rethink things, but without destroying half of the city
What does this all mean for the industry’s ambition to launch the latest and greatest technologies and business models?
On your bike
Indeed, the automotive industry has recognised that the future of mobility will not revolve around the car, and manufacturers are investigating how to compete—and in some cases play— with the likes of electric scooters and bicycles.
Stuttgart is not a particularly large city, with a population of just over 600,000 residents, but its geography presents a number of challenges from a mobility standpoint. The city is surrounded by forests and lies amid a range of deep valleys and hills. The River Neckar also flows south through the eastern flank of the city, and this could all make any radical changes to infrastructure tricky.
“We have bridges across rivers that have been around for hundreds of years, so drastic changes to infrastructure and roads cannot be done easily,” said Patrick Dufour, Managing Director of Wirtschaftsförderung Raum Heilbronn GmbH, a business promotion firm based in the Heilbronn district to the north of Stuttgart. “In Roman times we had roads and carriages, and today’s mobility challenges have not changed much since then. We really need to rethink things, but without destroying half of the city.”
Given its scattering of hills, commuting by bicycle has never been hugely popular around Stuttgart. “You cannot commute on your bike as you will need a shower before starting work,” said Dufour. However, the recent boom in pedal-assist bicycles has begun to change the mind-set of locals. Today, those tiny electric motors can make a daunting task a breeze.
With a low emission zone in effect and a ban on older Euro 4 diesels, the city follows a wider global trend to improve urban air quality
“There has been a significant rise in bicycle use, but admittedly from a very low level,” advised Michael Münter, Head of Strategic Planning and Sustainable Mobility, City of Stuttgart. Around 5% of road users were cyclists ten years ago, he noted, which has grown to around 8-9% over the last ten years. “We have a lot of hills and an altitude difference of 400m, but with e-bikes this is no longer an excuse for not cycling,” he observed.
Air quality
With a low emission zone in effect and a ban on older Euro 4 diesels, the city follows a wider global trend to improve urban air quality. A further restriction targeting slightly newer Euro 5 diesel vehicles is under consideration for 1 January 2020, but will only come into action pending a review of the current ban.
City officials have also been involved in roundtables with automakers, major suppliers and energy companies to understand how electric vehicles can be introduced en masse. In 2012, Daimler launched a fully electric car sharing service in Stuttgart under the Car2Go brand. According to Münter, this was to experiment with EVs “not only in small pilots but on a city-wide basis.”
As of June, Stuttgart had around 10,000 alternative propulsion vehicles on its roads, including mild hybrids, plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and BEVs. “In German terms, it’s quite a lot,” Münter mused. However, teething pains remain for EVs in general, some of which are legacy issues. “The number of cars being registered here is rising, but there is also a huge parking problem in our city,” said Dufour. Regardless of the method of propulsion, it is simply getting harder to pack in more cars on Stuttgart’s streets.
Ultimately, the goal is not to add more cars, but to encourage existing drivers to swap their purchasing preference to a plug-in vehicle. If EV adoption does rise, the city is well prepped with a “dense electric recharging infrastructure,” advised Münter.
Public transport
Stuttgart’s S-Bahn is a rail network that runs throughout the city over seven lines, with all routes passing through the city centre. For many, it is seen as unreliable and sluggish in its current form—the shortest interval between trains is 15 minutes, and that is during peak rush hour. A dual-track tunnel through which three lines pass also creates a bottleneck.
Stuttgart is interlinked with the other rural areas around it, and we really need to look at optimising that aspect
“Unfortunately we do not have the opportunity to add more trains, and this is something that cannot be changed very quickly,” said Münter. Despite this, he advised that public transportation use is generally on the rise.
A major inter-city rail project known as Stuttgart 21 has also trudged on; it was originally announced back in 1994, but construction work only began in 2010. Since then, the estimated cost of the project has ballooned, and Stuttgart residents continue to suffer from ongoing construction work that causes frequent delays. A mixture of over ground and high-speed lines are currently being built, with an estimated completion date of 2021.
It is a touchy subject that has drawn widespread public criticism, much like the HS2 rail project under way in the UK. Protests against the Stuttgart 21 project have been heightened amid the demolition of buildings to make way for new tracks, but a referendum in 2011 found that the majority of locals were in favour of the project to continue—albeit amid suggestions that bailing out would ultimately be more expensive.
“Stuttgart is interlinked with the other rural areas around it, and we really need to look at optimising that aspect,” said Dufour. “Many commuters are not necessarily using public transportation just yet, but are starting to consider it.”
New tech
With talk of growing private vehicle ownership, delayed trains and a penchant for walking, Stuttgart would not appear to be a poster child for future mobility as it has been with automotive manufacturing. However, technology innovation is still expected to play an important role in helping people and goods move around the city.
MaaS and CASE are in the city today
For example, the S-Bahn is currently trialling a new coloured signalling system to indicate how busy each carriage is when a train reaches the platform. The idea is that passengers can enter and exit trains as quickly as possible, and trains will be less densely packed overall. “One light could show that a carriage is very busy, while another light could say the adjacent carriage is relatively free,” explained Münter. His department is also investigating how a comprehensive smartphone app can be used to access different modes of transport and shared services across the city with ease. “These are things we are testing in order to make things better,” he advised.
Münter also highlighted that much of the technology presented as being far off in the future is already in use. For example, connected navigation services have helped travellers get around the city for years; strong electric charging infrastructure supports a fleet of shared EVs; and the city has the largest inter-regional bike-sharing system in Germany. “MaaS and CASE are in the city today,” he affirmed.
As for talk of air taxis or ‘flying cars’, do not hold your breath: “I do not see this being a very good idea,” Münter concluded. “Let’s get ground transport running first before considering other things.”
This article was featured in Automotive World’s Special report: M:bility | Europe – key takeaways
