GERMANY Daimler Buses is joining the Berlin-based CleverShuttle mobility service as a strategic investor. As part of a minority stake, EvoBus GmbH and CleverShuttle plan a strategic cooperation for “on-demand mobility,” – mobility offers which are flexibly adapted to suit customer demands.
Using the CleverShuttle software platform, traffic associations and companies offer innovative solutions in order to be able to optimally adapt their mobility offers to customer requirements at any time. The new on-demand software is based on the tried-and-tested technology from CleverShuttle and can be integrated into existing regular service routes. This collaboration leads to transport offerings which are more suited to requirements and which, at the same time, are more economical.
CleverShuttle holds a pioneering role in Germany in the field of “on-demand mobility.” Since the beginning of 2016, it has been running a car-sharing service based on the use of electrically-powered passenger cars and was thus already able to gather experience in efficient pooling and route optimisation.
Daimler Buses aspires to play an active part in shaping the future of mobility and not merely by means of new vehicles, but also by new service offerings. To this end, since 2016, it has had a specialist ‘mobility solutions’ department in place as a sort of ‘think tank’ for all future-relevant topics. The further development of existing business models is every bit as much a part of the bus business as the development of completely new concepts. A key aspect for the success of mobility solutions is working in collaboration with partners and customers. It’s the only way of finding suitable solutions which offer the utmost level of usefulness to customers, says Daimler.
Heinz Friedrich, Head of Mobility Solutions Daimler Buses said: “In the development of new solutions concerning the future of mobility, we’re not only working with our long-standing customers from the public transport networks, but also with new, innovative technology companies from the start-up scene. This allows us to quickly provide our customers with new offers in order to adjust their future business even better to their individual requirements. Together with CleverShuttle we are going to test the new services already this year as a part of an initial pilot phase in a German city.”
“We’re really driving things forward as we are already starting to see how well-received our ride-sharing concept in Berlin, Leipzig and Munich is,” said Bruno Ginnuth, Co-founder and Managing Director of CleverShuttle. “With it, we’re closing the gap between buses and taxis. Both have their own purpose, but in between them there was hardly anything available in Germany. Now we want to use our knowledge as a B2B solution and have gained the best partner we could have wished for in the form of Daimler Buses.”
