The Berlkönig ride pooling service in Berlin is on the brink.
The Berlkönig stands for a mix of Erlkönig and Berlin. Erlkönige does not mean the legendary ballad by Goethe, it is called vehicles that have been sighted but are actually not intended for the eyes of the public.
Street infrastructure Berlin
The vehicles from Berlkönig but you saw it quite often on the streets of Berlin, which could soon be a picture of the past. Berlkönig is a ride service where you can ride within the S-Bahn ring of the capital with others who want to go in the same direction.
The criticism of the concept that can be booked via the app was that it was the passengers of the public transport takes away. Because the vehicles ran mainly at night and reduced the number of passengers of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), which operated the service itself.
The concept is still under discussion, but according to media reports, the offer could be mothballed from the end of April. Because the financing is no longer secured. The project is run by the company ViaVan operated. ViaVan no longer wants to pay the costs and so the country should now Berlin to pay the costs. Although the city has a good night service in public transport, it should put eleven million euros from taxpayers’ money on the table.
The concept was approved on the condition that it would reduce private car traffic and contribute to the climate. According to the BVG, however, only about one percent of private car traffic was reduced. This number would increase to 17 percent if you covered the entire urban area, but that would mean a huge budget with 43 million euros.
With this money, you could better expand public transport, because the money would be invested more sensibly, I think.
About David Fluhr
I have been writing about autonomous & connected driving since 2011 and also report on it on other sites, such as the Smart Mobility Hub. I studied social sciences at HU Berlin and have been an independent journalist since 2012. Contact: mail@autonomes-fahren.de