S In the coming weeks, the Volkswagen subsidiary Moia intends to launch a public shuttle service with minibuses in Hanover. After Moia has received approval from the municipal administration for its novel – as the company says in the most beautiful new German – “ride-sharing offer”, in a first step a total of around 18,500 users will be using the new minibus service from VW to be able to use. “Moia will be available to all Hanoverians by the end of the year at the latest,” the company announced this Tuesday. The concession of the city initially applies to 150 vehicles, from summer 2020, it could be increased to up to 250 vehicles.
Hanover and Hamburg are the first two cities where VW will introduce its new mobility services. Since October 2017, there has been a test operation in the Lower Saxony state capital with 20 vehicles and 3500 registered users. Moia CEO Ole Harms said the offer was well received in the test. Initially, the service will be opened for the further 15,000 interested parties who have already applied for the test phase, but did not get the chance. “With the further expansion of the vehicle fleet, we will gradually open up to all Hanoverians in the second half of this year.”
Like a shared taxi
The business model of Moia is simple: Several people share a VW Bulli – “Pooling” call that the VW managers. Customers order a vehicle through an app, and software then sums up the passengers with comparable destinations. The stops are the result of customer requests and should never be more than 250 meters away from a passenger. That makes the idea of Volkswagen So attractive for politicians in the cities: There are fewer emissions, fewer cars on the roads and fewer empty runs.
A Moia bus should come in minutes if you need it – which is why many customers and many vehicles are needed. Up to five people can be accommodated – Moia ranks as a kind of shared taxi between public transport such as bus and tram and a taxi. “We offer an alternative to our own car,” said Moia board member Robert Henrich for the start in Hannover. “By bundling trips, we relieve the traffic and the environment.”
Especially the taxi drivers continue to rebel against Moia and Volkswagen. They see themselves threatened by the large corporation as competitors in their existence. Many taxi companies fear a price competition in which they can not compete. The local press quoted the managing director of the Hanoverian taxi association Hallo Taxi, Wolfgang Pettau, as saying that he feared that the VW subsidiary would “flatten the taxi companies.” Pettau’s colleagues in Hamburg are of the same opinion.
During the test phase, the price for a ride on a Moia minivan in Hanover was 6 cents per person per kilometer. With the start of public works, prices are rising. In the future, they should be between the tariffs for local public transport and for a taxi. The price “can vary according to day of the week and time, as well as depending on supply and demand,” it says. “In any case, the price will be transparent to the customer before booking”.
In Hamburg, the shuttle service 2019 may go to the start. There Moia wants to use newly developed electric buses for six passengers from the beginning, while in Hannover initially – as in the test phase – VW buses are used with gasoline engines. Here, the operation should only be fully equipped with emissions-free vehicles from 2022 onwards. In Hamburg, the operation is to be limited to a maximum of 500 vehicles in the first two years. In both cities, the fleet could later be increased if an independent companion study does not find any negative impact on public transport and the taxi industry.