Happy New Year 2021!?

Dear partners, customers, and friends,

The holidays are behind us, as is the schedule change, so it’s time to take a look at what the new year has in store for us. In the past, I’ve often written here about upcoming trade shows, conferences, and important dates. We’ll all be meeting soon in Freiburg at the Innovation Congress to discuss how we’ll present ourselves at the ITS World Congress in Hamburg this October.

Well, the latter may be able to resume, but in what form? What hurdles will we have overcome by then? As I write this post, the radio is reporting that public transportation in Germany could be shut down. What does it mean for an entire industry when the public perceives it as the nation’s virus spreader? What can we do to set the record straight?

I think that if there’s one thing we can learn from this period, it’s that we can make even better use of new technologies—whether for contact tracing, discussing our projects, or managing our passengers more effectively. This pandemic has sparked a tremendous surge in innovation. In many companies, it’s no problem to get in touch with them via video conference. Holding meetings this way has become completely normal.

We should all take advantage of this wave of innovation to explore how we can better adapt public transportation services to meet the challenges ahead. Other competitors have been on the market for a long time and are gaining market share because they transport their passengers in an isolated space. We have a lot to offer in response: intelligent management of passenger flows, fare systems that support working from home, real-time vehicle occupancy displays, and much more.

Many of these systems are already on the market. All you—as a transportation company and public authority—have to do is take advantage of them! I think that will be the big challenge in 2021.

Kay Tewes