Ride-sharing: MOIA launches a pilot project in London
Ride-sharing is coming to the British capital, where testing will kick off this autumn, supervised by the London Transport Authority, Transport for London (TfL).
MOIA is going beyond the German border for the first time to London, where it will start a year-long pilot project alongside RATP Dev, one of the world's largest transport companies. The test will take place in Ealing, West London, where 40% of residents commute to work with their own car. The goal of the project is to see how people will react to an alternative to private vehicles, in the form of more sustainable mobility solutions like that offered by MOIA. It will also analyse how ride-sharing could integrate public transport.
MOIA and RATP Dev’s vehicles will complement the existing bus network, while also improving access to tube and train stations. The goal of ride-sharing also involves making the use of urban roads and infrastructure more efficient, avoid congestion and emissions and thus limit the burden on the environment.
An international project
The London project is of particular significance for various reasons. First and foremost, it is the first concrete example of cooperation between MOIA and a public transport operator, and will therefore be an opportunity to create starting points for future collaboration models. And, of course, it is the first international experience for the Volkswagen subsidiary. The testing phase will be supervised by Transport for London (TfL), which runs public transport in the British capital.
According to the Mayor of London's traffic strategy, by 2041 80% of journeys in the city should be completed on foot, by bicycle or by public transport. MOIA’s experts will examine the various options available to help achieve this goal. Tests like this give will give TfL an indication of whether flexible on-demand services can get people to leave their cars behind, and will provide relevant information above all to understand whether the authority can supplement existing bus services with new on-demand services in areas that are difficult to reach with conventional public transport.
Technology and experimentation
In the joint test, MOIA will deliver the technology, including the customer and driver app, as well as the pooling (route calculation) algorithm. RATP Dev, one of the world's largest passenger transport companies with public transport systems in 14 countries, will be responsible for the operation of the vehicle fleet. As in Hamburg and Hanover, the route of the vehicles is completely flexible and calibrated in real time on the basis of user requests. There is a further added value, however: a dense network of virtual breakpoints ensures that customers have to walk a maximum of 200 metres both when getting on and off. In London, service times will be daily from 6am to 1am.
Source: MOIA