Materna subsidiary TraffGo Road is developing a concept for a nationwide e-scooter platform

E-scooters have now become a familiar sight in the modern cityscape. A nationwide data and service platform is set to launch, with the aim of coordinating various providers and local authorities as part of shared mobility schemes. Building on this, new services can be developed to further improve urban mobility. Together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) and the consultancy firm von Beust & Coll., the mobility specialist TraffGo Road GmbH – a company within the Materna Group – has laid the foundations for this innovative multi-operator platform. The participants have now presented the results of the ‘ScooP’ project.

The operation of e-scooters is an important step towards the mobility transition. To improve the acceptance and appeal of sharing schemes in major German cities, the mobility and transport data specialist TraffGo Road, together with researchers from Fraunhofer IAO and legal experts from von Beust & Coll. Consulting, designed a data and service platform to improve the integration of e-scooter fleets into road traffic. As a first step, the project consortium has developed legal, technical and organisational standards for local authorities and e-scooter-sharing providers. Based on these uniform standards, a multi-operator platform has been designed to strengthen cooperation between all stakeholders involved.

Local authorities, sharing providers, transport planners and road safety experts can share their data transparently and in a spirit of trust via the platform, access quality-assured data and services, and coordinate and optimise their offerings. Building on the data and service platform that has been designed, services such as data-driven selection of parking and riding zones or AI-supported utilisation forecasts for e-scooter fleets can be established in future, as well as advisory services on integration into urban mobility in conjunction with other modes of transport.

TraffGo plays a key role in the design of data-driven mobility services

The transport experts at TraffGo Road have contributed their expertise in the transmission and exchange of geo- and mobility data to the research project and are supporting the development of a shared-mobility ecosystem open to all stakeholders.

Dr Joachim Wahle, Managing Director of TraffGo Road GmbH, explains: “The success of the multi-operator platform we support in the field of mobile phone parking (www.smartparking.de) provided the blueprint for this project. From operating the platform, we were able to gain valuable insights into collaborating with multiple providers within a local authority. We have further developed these insights and successfully applied them to the e-scooter sector.”

The “ScooP” research project was funded as part of the mFUND innovation initiative, the Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport’s (BMDV) modernisation fund for Mobility 4.0.

Joachim Wahle is delighted: “A follow-up project to implement the data and service platform is already in the planning stage, and we are looking forward to new collaboration partners and new challenges.”

Further information on the project is available in the Fraunhofer IAO press release.