Hamburg ranks as the most congested city in Germany, but it’s working hard to lose that title. By 2030, the city wants 80% of all journeys to be made by public transportation, bicycle or on foot, with every resident able to reach a bus or train within five minutes. To hit that target, the city’s transit operator is rolling out improvements that go beyond the existing bus and rail network: self-driving shuttles.
Next year, the German port city plans to launch a fleet of up to 20 autonomous electric minibusses that initially will offer free on-demand rides across up to 50 square kilometers (about 20 square miles). The pilot phase of the program, dubbed ALIKE, is set to run until 2026, but the larger vision is to expand the fleet to as many as 10,000 vehicles by 2030 to fill in current transit gaps and help the city achieve its emissions goals. Ultimately, the idea is to make public transportation so effortless and accessible that private vehicles get left behind.
“We have to think about how we can transport more people in the future and at the same time without emissions. That’s why shared mobility is an important issue for us,” said Franziska Becker, who leads the department for autonomous mobility at Hamburger Hochbahn AG, Germany’s second-largest public transport provider. “We’ll look at whether such a service makes it easier for people to switch to public transport, and perhaps even to sell their car.”
The dream of on-demand public transit isn’t new. Over the last decade, cities around the world have experimented with forms of microtransit — demand-responsive mobility services that offer flexible, door-to-door rides. The promise of public transportation that’s more comfortable and convenient than traditional fixed-route buses but cheaper than ride-hailing has drawn lots of venture capital and hype, but progress to date has been sobering. An early wave of smartphone-summoned operators like Bridj and Chariot quickly shuttered in the US, as operations often proved too expensive and inefficient.
But Hamburg is optimistic that it can make the model work. The effort is half funded by federal transportation authorities to the tune of some €26 million ($29 million), with the rest coming from Hamburger Hochbahn itself and several project partners. And it has the potential to eliminate a key operating cost: the drivers.
“Autonomous transport is the key to a new chapter in mobility because it makes on-demand scalable and more economical, as you no longer need staff, which we have a shortage of anyway,” said Martin Kagerbauer, who’s accompanying the project as part of a research team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. “But you have to say goodbye to the idea that you can make a lot of money with passenger transportation.”
Two different vehicles will be used in the pilot. The first one is a self-driving version of the Volkswagen ID. Buzz electric van, the second one is the Benteler brand’s Holon Mover, a self-driving shuttle with no steering wheel and room for 15 passengers. The sleek Pininfarina-styled vehicle will make its European debut in Hamburg.
Both vehicles will operate on Level 4 automation, which allows for human-free operation under certain conditions. However, technical supervision from an on-board observer is still required for the trial operation. This may change if the pilot is successful and the state subsequently grants full approval for the vehicle and operations, meaning that several buses could be monitored simultaneously from control centers. In other cities around the world, self-driving mobility services have faced a series of regulatory and safety issues, hampering robotaxi rollouts.
Minus the autonomous driving tech, publicly funded on-demand transit programs date back to the pre-digital era and are still common in the US as “dial-a-ride” services in small towns and rural areas too small for traditional buses. But they are typically costly to operate on a per-ride basis, and critics say that demand-responsive mobility for the price of public transit just isn’t achievable.
“On-demand is not necessarily better,” said Eva Heinen, a professor in transport planning at ETH Zurich. “The question is to what extent it’s acceptable both for the user or for other parties to pay up for those services or subsidize it.”
How much a ride will cost after the pilot ends is still unclear. A hint is offered by Moia, a commercial ridepooling service that’s a partner in the Hamburg pilot. The company, a subsidiary of Volkswagen Group, has been operating in Hamburg since 2019, charging prices that typically fall between public transit and cabs, depending on the distance, time of the day, and level of demand. Moia has struggled to make the service profitable so far but hopes that the use of autonomous vehicles could help change this.
Like Moia, Hamburg’s AV shuttle pilot won’t offer true door-to-door service. Users can book a ride with an app and then head to a nearby meeting point. Other riders will likely hop on during the journey. While detours will be kept as efficient as possible, thanks to Moia’s routing algorithm, it’s clear that users will need to be more time-flexible compared to taking a taxi.
Part of the pilot program’s promise lies in its ability to supplement rather than supplant Hamburg’s existing network of trains, buses, and trams, which is extensive and will include a fully automated metro line that’s expected to open in 2033.
Whether that will be enough to convince people to leave their cars behind remains to be seen. The city is hoping to see both a drop in carbon emissions and traffic congestion. According to a report by Moia, a fleet of 5,000 autonomous buses — aided by accompanying measures like congestion charges on private cars — could save Hamburg around 15 million vehicle kilometers per week compared to current levels. Another report, from the mobility solution provider ioki, said that a national network of demand-responsive shuttles could provide an estimated 25 million people in Germany an attractive alternative to the private car.
Hamburg has already experimented with some other alternative transit models. In the summer of 2021, an autonomous minibus ran on a small fixed route, and a suburban project in 2018 became the first on-demand bus service integrated into the fare system of Hamburg’s public transport. These shuttles have a surcharge of €1 to €2 per ride (in addition to the regular fare ticket) to bridge the distance between home and stations.
Graham Parkhurst, a professor of sustainable mobility at the University of the West of England, believes that ride-pooling services like the one in Hamburg have the potential to reach new riders in places that are currently inaccessible by public transport. “In many cities, we’ve gone pretty much as far as we can with traditional public transport,” he said. “Now we need to serve all those 20th and 21st-century housing areas where the private car is currently the most obvious way to travel. This could be a way to address that.”
Becker from Hamburger Hochbahn is optimistic that the pilot could become a model for other cities, but she emphasizes that self-driving microtransit still has a long way to go.
“There is no question that autonomous on-demand is coming. What’s important is that we haven’t reached the end yet,” Becker said. “We need to keep the use case for public transport high so that the products don’t only continue to develop in the private sector.”