Digitalization in Public Transport
- 2. 2 Introduction Climate change and its consequences are currently a major topic amongst governments, cor- porations, and citizens. The urge to develop sustainable solutions to tackle one of our civiliza- tion’s biggest challenges is dramatically increasing and businesses are being given a big share of accountability along the process. Additionally, the technology rise, and digitalization era have disruptively changed the way cus- tomers want to be served and addressed by companies. Seamless and connected customer experience, personalized and smart services, intuitive and real-time support are just a few of customers’ main expectations in the current context. In order to meet these requirements, companies have no choice but to rethink and redesign their services and business models. The German public transport sector, and by that we mean partly public-funded companies offering long- and short-range passenger transportation by rail or road, has been facing a slug- gish digital transformation to improve performance. The sector is afflicted by a wide range of challenges: Lack of innovative products, high operation costs, insufficient service performance, soaring ticket prices and unsatisfactory customer experience are just a few. Although the over- all number of public transport users in Germany is constantly growing1 , several of the issues in the sector are nevertheless pushing many customers to shift towards cars for their daily routine, leading to even more congested and polluted cities. Considering the demographic development of Germany, with more people flocking to cities, additional cars on the roads will pose social, economic and environmental challenges for many cities. However, the environment, climate, and energy were listed as the main concerns in Germany in 20192 . These concerns are addressed by the German government’s commitment to lever- age all means to curve air pollution, by unveiling a multi-billion plan for climate policies, and allocating the biggest financial package ever to Deutsche Bahn3 . With financial packages and advantageous policies, public transport is in a privileged position to tackle climate change and lower CO2 emissions. But why are public transport companies in Germany still struggling to meet their customers’ expectations? Is the connection of different transport services and modes on a digital platform the solution to enable an ecologic, robust and customer-centric mobility in German cities? Technology and digitalization are undoubtfully playing a major role nowadays for customer engagement and business performance. How do we use these tools to reinvent the passenger mobility within and between German cities, and to make the public transport sector competi- tive, efficient, smart and attractive? That would require changes in all layers across organiza- tions. How do we make sure that the transformation process is understood, supported and sustainably implemented in the whole company? This white paper analyzes the current challenges within the German public transport landscape with companies like BVG (Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe) and Deutsche Bahn. It comes out that deficient infrastructure, high operating costs, high ticket prices, lack of innovation and insuffi- cient connections are mainly responsible for customer dissatisfaction. Furthermore, we will demonstrate how technology tools and innovative business models can improve service quality and performance. Lastly, this work will examine the relevance of leadership, corporate culture communication and agility to enable the transformation.
- 3. 3 The challenges in public transport sector Old and overburdened Infrastructure 62 % Tickets too expensive 34% Too many outages and unreliability 45% Unpunctuality 51% Crowded buses and trains MAIN REASONS WHY GERMANS ARE LIKELY TO USE LESS OR NO PUBLIC TRANSPORT Source: ADAC e.V.4 Infrastructure, especially in railway transport, might not be perceived by pas- sengers as the key factor for performant and reliable mobility. One may think that more trains and connections alone are enough to enhance the experience and traffic on railways. However, in the operations universe, the availability, automation, and efficiency of the rail network are crucial. Germany com- pared to other European nations, relatively doesn’t invest enough to modernize and extend its network (Figure 1). Especially when the country, in terms of network length and passengers carried, represents by far the biggest railway industry in Eu- rope. Deutsche Bahn, Europe’s biggest railway company, carried alone approxi- mately 2,08 billion passengers in 2018, al- most double than the French SNCF, ranked second in the statistic5 . The numbers of course sound astonishing and it seems at first glance as if everything was properly fine. The higher number of passengers in- creases the pressure on the already busy, partly old and fully stretched infrastructure network. Additionally, there is a wide range of other sectors and companies using the German rail infrastructure daily: Railway Cargo represented by DB Cargo with a fleet of approximately 70.000 wagons, several local and international railway operators such as Vlexx, HLB, ÖBB, SNCF, and Tha- lys. The results of extremely high traffics on a tight network are massive long- and short- distance train delays, trips cancellation and acute capacity shortages, negatively im- pacting customer satisfaction and discour- aging potential travelers.
- 4. 4 High operating costs 362 187 183 362 165 362 160 362 128 362 73 362 69 362 38 362 362 Switzerland Austria Sweden GB Denmark Netherlands Italy Germany France STATE INVESTMENT PER HEAD OF POPULATION IN THE RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE In selected European countries, in euros, 2017 Figure 1 (Source 6 : Allianz pro Schiene | 07/2018 | BMVI, VöV, SCI Verkehr) GmbH The reality in today’s public transport is the elevated amount of financial re- sources necessary to produce services. Many public transport companies strug- gle to keep their production systems and assets operating efficiently and smoothly, seeking to forbear costly downtimes. No matter if on a national (Deutsche Bahn) or regional level (BVG, HHA, etc.) the materials, operating and maintenance costs are constantly raising. Hamburger Hochbahn, the biggest transport com- pany in Hamburg which operates the un- derground metro and a large part of the bus network, saw an annual rise of ap- proximately 4 million € between 2017 and 2018 in operation costs7 . Berlin’s BVG witnessed an even larger increase in the same category between 2016 and 2017 (Figure 2). DB Fernverkehr for instance, dedicated to intercity and international passenger transport within the Deutsche Bahn group, must set aside around 20 to 25 % of each sold ticket just for the train path fees (‘Trasse’ in German)8 . If we then add taxes, attrition, personnel, utilities, IT and logistic costs, it becomes clear why the train tickets are currently so expensive. In fact, it is common to encounter flights cheaper than train tickets for the same con- nection within the country. The probability becomes particularly higher when looking for instantaneous journeys (Figure 3). Attributable to the heterogeneity and aging of fleets, the maintenance costs and com- plexity are continuously increasing for many German transport companies. Further, the scarcity of technical experts in the profes- sional market accentuates the need for a smart, efficient and automated maintenance management.
- 5. 5 BVG GENERATED IN 2017 €14,7 MILLION MORE REVENUE THAN DURING THE PRE- VIOUS YEAR. SIMULTANEOUSLY, ITS OP- ERATING AND MAINTENANCE EXPENSES INCREASED BY €21,9 MILLION 2016 2017 Operations / Maintenance costsRevenue 1.214,7 (+14,7) 1.200 307,1 (+21,9) 285,2 (in million €) Figure 3: A spontaneous trip by train is often the most expensive option (Skscanner | Deutsche Bahn | retrieved Dec. 27, 2019) Figure 2: Source9 : BVG 2017 annual report
- 6. 6 The scarcity of connections to suburbs and rural areas In the current social, political and ecolog- ical context in Germany, public transport companies’ main goal is to reduce private vehicles’ use around the country. Alt- hough the population’s distribution in Ger- many is rapidly changing, with progres- sively more people moving to cities, a considerable amount of people still live in suburbs and rural areas. Because of years of savings on a local and national level in the public transport sector, the scarcity of transport connections and infrastructure in those areas rose, leaving the population no choice but to primarily and heavily rely on personal cars for their daily routines. The problem is getting bigger in larger cities like Berlin, where the housing prices in the heart of the city and population size are constantly rising10 , forcing many people to move further from the city center. Low-earning population groups and senior citizens are particularly impacted11 , taking the problem above the transport context to a social and government issue. Figure 4: Distance to the nearest transport stopping point in Berlin 0 – 300 meters 300 – 500 meters 500 – 1000 meters >1000 meters Source: Tagespiegel11 Figure 5: Geographical distribution of senior citizens within Berlin Source: Tagespiegel11
- 7. 7 The digitalization has creatively reshaped market trends and the interaction between customers and businesses. Customers have come to consider fully digital, omnichannel, personalized, smart and intuitive products as standard. Whereas it is normal in other sectors to expe- rience a fully customized and digital journey (e.g. Banking), public transport still consider- ably lags behind12 . There are very few unin- terrupted and immersive passenger transpor- tations offers in Germany. Lack of innovative services and business models Insufficient connections to rural and suburb areas Within the same trip, a customer often must engage with multiple companies and sepa- rately use different products through vari- ous interfaces. This disconnected experi- ence increases the complexity and reduces transparency along the process, generally undermining customers’ willingness to use public transportation. Car-Sharing Mainzer Mobilität / book-n-drive Book-n-drive City-Bus Mainzer Mobilität Mainzer Möbilität Bike-Sharing Mainzer Mobilität meinRad Service Owner Interface / App Moving within a city like Mainz often requires interaction with multiple interfaces, systems, and companies. Although the providers are very close to each other, the customer still faces a disconnected and opaque experience, which then weakens his engagement. Mainzer Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH
- 8. 8 Nowadays, digital transformation has become a broad term for redefining business and services in the digital age. It refers to any activity using digital technologies to solve specific problems, adapt to newer market requirements, and en- hance performance and efficiency within organ- izations. The most prominent technologies currently revo- lutionizing companies, trends, and services (e.g. Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence) are modern and faster ways of processing data and visualizing the outcome. Many companies and in- dustries so far have implemented data technolo- gies to improve specific processes. But only very few have successfully managed to develop a data strategy that is fully merged and embedded in all layers of the organization and activities: From decision making, product development throughout to customer experience. A digital, innovative and performant public transport The opportunities and fields of application for the public transport are endless and versatile. Collecting, analyzing and processing data to overcome business challenges is at the core of the digital transformation: Data is the new gold! Speed up decision- making process Data Enhance product experience Increase revenue Optimize customer satisfaction Increase effi- ciency and internal transparency Data Strategy IT and business stakeholders can team up to develop a data strat- egy supporting all relevant goals and activities within the company
- 9. 9 Improving and automating processes with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning Companies are now aware of the potentials and opportunities laying behind AI and machine learning algorithms. Many manual tasks can be automatically, smartly and accurately per- formed by algorithms, increasing efficiency and speeding up processes. In Germany, most public transport companies still perform timetable management and dispo- sition manually. Taking different parameters such as traffic conditions, atmospheric condi- tions, personnel capacity, and infrastructure availabilities into account, smart algorithms can accurately and much faster optimize routes, thus considerably reducing large delays and cancellations. DB Netz AG is currently working on a concept to fully digitize and automate the rail train path’ booking process. For many years, over 12.000 traffic officers routed more than 40.000 trains through the German rail network daily. The re- ality was a long booking process, inefficient and manual route design, which resulted in over- stretched network capacity and numerous de- lays. The new processes powered by intelligent algorithms will considerably reduce the booking procedure down to a few minutes and increase network availability. In a sector where skilled workers, tools and re- sources are lacking, companies are using algo- rithms to analyze real-time data, identify pat- terns, and predict technical failures before they happen: Predictive maintenance. Current oper- ations and usage data combined with historical data, then aggregated in a regression and clas- sification model can accurately determine when a specific technical failure is likely to happen. Thereby, a sudden shortage through unex- pected failure can be prevented as the asset can proactively and efficiently be directed into the maintenance process. Costs and resources are saved since technical operations are per- formed only when indispensable. Furthermore, avoiding and minimizing downtimes can greatly increase customer satisfaction. Many of us have been stranded at least once during a trip because a train or bus had an unexpected technical malfunction and know very well the frustration and anger that are triggered by such negative ex- periences. The tasks preceding the re- pair itself can as well be redesigned and automated. The system can autono- mously determine where the next ac- cessible repair shop is located, and check if capacity, material, and know- how necessary to fulfill the work are available. Manual intervention and error margin are dramatically reduced, sav- ing the company time and money. Keeping track in real-time with IoT and cloud connectivity BVG owns a fleet of over 3.100 vehi- cles. Giant Deutsche Bahn owns a fleet of approximately 29.000 vehicles for the passenger transport (DB Fernverkehr, DB Arriva and DB Regio)13 . Traditional monitoring, with manual inspectors reg- ularly controlling the fleet state, seems nearly impossible nowadays: At least not in an efficient and cost-saving way. The introduction and success of IoT de- vices (sensors, telematic devices, tags, drones, etc.) enabled a rich and quick experience in infrastructure and asset monitoring. Predictive Maintenance combined with intelligent IoT devices will not only reduce the costs and com- plexity behind the processes, but also simultaneously increase both service reliability and quality. Fixed in strategic locations (e.g. bus de- pots), cameras can routinely examine the external frame any time a bus drive through. Vibration and thermal sensors can promptly detect unusual engine be- havior. Thus, tracking the overall asset health and decommissioning parts after a failure or at the end of the lifecycle be- comes much simpler.
- 10. 10 01010101010101010101010101010101010101 01010101010101010101010101010101010101 01010101011010101010101010110101010101 CONNECTED VEHICLES AND DEVICES REAL-TIME DATA PROCESSING REAL-TIME DATA AVAILABILITY TO BUSINESS STAKEHOLDERS Disposition Teams Decision Makers Sales & Marketing Maintenance Mgmt Following a data strategy, IoT and smart data can be processed and visualized through KPI-dashboards or alerts. Enabling: • Faster decision making • Reliable, robust and automated processes • Greater costs reduction • Productivity improvement • Product and customer experience optimization
- 11. 11 Cutting down education and training costs with Augmented and Virtual Reality Remote, on-demand, individual trainings will improve educa- tion’s quality, while decreasing travel and training expenses. With IoT connectivity, customer and product experience as well can be innovatively rein- vented. Optical IoT sensors installed in trains, trams, and buses can measure the real-time load level. By embedding and processing IoT data in cloud infrastructure, warnings can be sent if a predefined limit is reached. Customers willing or waiting to take the upcoming but fully-loaded vehicle can be incentivized (by discounts or bonus points) to consider a later connection or different public transport mode. This will improve: (i) Customer engagement: clear and transparent vehicle capacity and full control by customer. (ii) Customer retention: incentives like discounts and bonus programs are likely to retain customers. More importantly, the interaction allows companies to bet- ter understand their customers and opti- mize their services. (iii) Customer experience: having a tool to curve overloaded buses and trains. AR and VR (collectively mixed reality or XR) for many years were considered by various to be a science-fiction toy with no relevance for businesses. Nowadays, the mentioned tech- nology is widespread across different sectors, setting the ground for a broad range of use cases. On account of extensive legal and operational requirements in the public transport sector, safety and technical trainings are mandatory. And costly! Having teams and facilities geo- graphically dispersed can make physical knowledge-transfer turn into a financial and logistic burden. Using XR for this purpose can dramati- cally reduce costs and increase produc- tivity. With interactive and immersive vis- ualizations in which objects look and be- have like reality, employees can enjoy training from anywhere and at any given time. The quality of the training and thus per- formance on the job can be highly en- hanced since learning pace and content can be individually customized.
- 12. 12 Powered by the internet and digitalization, platform business models encountered a huge success and radically transformed cus- tomer experience. Through platforms, prices and offers transparency, flexibility and com- fort for the customer are boosted. In fact, many of the most successful business stories such as Amazon or Airbnb are based on plat- form business models. In a constant effort to increase the quality of life by reducing personal cars’ traffic in cities, integrating all available mobility offers into a digital service ecosystem can be a key meas- ure to accelerate public transport use. With the technology rise and constantly evolving business trends, customers have come to consider digital ecosystems, with all related services bundled into a single space, as standards. The main goal is to generate greater customer engagement and experi- ence. Although we have witnessed the introduction of innovative mobility services such as E-roll- ers, sharing-bikes, and shuttle services, full integration into a common interface is barely present in the German public transport scene, with only a few products such as Jelbi in Berlin. Public transport customers in the German capital city now have a better over- view of diverse mobility offers near them and are therefore much more flexible with their planning. Larger transport companies such as BVG in this case, should rightfully take the lead in in- corporating other smaller private or public mobility offers into a single marketplace. Deutsche Bahn as the biggest mobility oper- ator in Germany could enable on the national level an integrated mobility offer using a digi- tal platform. The company recently intro- duced innovative products such as the shut- tle-service ioki, and previously, sharing-ser- vices like Flinkster and DB call a bike. Within this network, Deutsche Bahn could generate a door-to-door trip for customers traveling from and to not so well-connected areas, in- cluding first and last miles through different services like call a bike and ioki. Digital platforms and service ecosystems Run by BVG, the project Jelbi bundles dozens of mo- bility services in Berlin, including taxis, on a digital platform. Customers now have a single point of infor- mation and interaction for their inner-city mobility. Even though aforementioned solutions could play a crucial role in the future of public transport, the exclusion of foreign- ers and tourists still is a critical element. The services of Jelbi are only accessible to holders of EU driving licenses and IDs. Considering that the city of Berlin re- ceived over 5 million international visitors in 201814 , the presence of such guide- lines is excluding millions of potential customers. Therefore, reducing regional barriers and overall facilitating platform access to different customer groups re- mains an important component to gener- ate more users and profitability.
- 13. 13 ITINERARY TIER 14:40 Mainz, Goetheplatz 14:45 Mainz, Goetheplatz Bus 69 Messe Mainz 15:07 Mainz, Landwehrweg 15:08 Mainz, Landwehrweg meinRad 15:12 Mainz, Albanusstrasse 10 4,15€BOOK Consolidating mobility offers under a digital platform and generating trips with all different available vehicles will enhance public transport use. Sunday, 05.01.2020 14:30 Mainz, Central Station 15:12 Mainz, Albanusstrasse 10 14:30 Mainz, Central Station
- 14. 14 Accelerating digitalization with a robust organizational transformation There is no doubt that a digitalization program requires the implementation of technology in all relevant areas, to support and accelerate business performance. However, the organizational transformation that should imperatively and with the identical criticality be coupled with, is often and wrong- fully neglected. Chances for success are very narrow if the different layers and departments within the organization are not fully support- ive and aligned about the vision and efforts in a digital transformation context. This can be achieved through excellent leadership, trans- parent communication, and adequate corpo- rate culture. Leadership Next to technical and strong business pro- cess understanding, companies would need to equip leaders with a specific set of soft skills in order to empower and push their teams to embrace the changes. Conse- quently, this would make the role and defini- tion of leadership more versatile than ever. Alongside traditional leadership skills such as result orientation, motivation, and teamwork, five additional skills will be necessary in a constantly-evolving environment: Purpose: Leaders will embody their teams’ goals as a common purpose: ‘Why should we do it? What greater purpose are we seeking?’ With a clear purpose in mind, motivation and productivity could be boosted within teams. BVG employees actively working on innova- tive solutions to increase public transport use and decrease air pollution in Berlin could rightfully be perceived as a greater purpose. Authenticity: a challenge in a faster-changing environment is to remain true to oneself and reassure the people around. Adaptability: Leaders and their teams must be adaptive and ready against changes and disruptions. Resilience: a transformation is never easy, no matter the size or the sector of a company. Leaders and teams must be prepared to fail at different steps. More importantly, they must learn how to quickly bounce back and should not lose sight of the main goal. Systemic Thinking: Leaders must develop techniques to quickly gain insights into com- plex challenges to make the right decisions faster. Inclusive and clear communication A transformation can only be successful if the required measures are fully and repeatedly communicated and explained. Particularly in large organizations, the key messages do not always reach everyone. CEOs and senior managers must take the lead and relentlessly remind the employees why, how and with what expectations the organization is seeking a transformation. For this purpose, innovative communication tools (Social media networks, internal podcasts, etc.) and channels can be implemented to reach every employee. Additionally, potential influencers (e.g. work- ing council representatives) should serve as amplifiers across the organization and the communication distance to the management board can be reduced through face-to-face meeting formats. More often, companies will be pushed to adapt and redesign their corporate culture to succeed in a transformation process.
- 15. 15 Corporate culture In a faster-evolving business environment, corporate culture is now one of the most im- portant elements for attracting talents and in- creasing a company’s value. Thus, compa- nies are pushed to encourage a set of specific values across the organization to enable and accelerate the transformation. Encourage risk-taking Innovation and disruption are mostly trig- gered by adventurous and self-confident peo- ple. Companies should empower their em- ployees and give them the necessary frame- work to develop and implement their ideas. However, this comes with financial risks as failures will occasionally occur. Organizations must carefully assess the financial impacts and the innovation’ criticality to develop a sustainable risk-taking frame. Foster external cooperation To support the digital transformation, compa- nies typically use their resources or contract a solutions provider. Nevertheless, savings, know-how, and efficiency could be amplified by partnering with companies from the same sector. Although operating in different regions with different products, companies across the public transport sector often have the same challenges. Therefore ‘Coopetition’ can result in common benefits and accelerate the trans- formation within the whole sector. Deutsche Bahn and SNCF, the two biggest European railway companies, entered back in 2018 a partnership to speed up innovation in the railway sector. Experts from different departments across the two companies are joining resources and know-how to develop digital solutions, for instance, Visual Inspec- tion, Data Sharing, and Robot Operating Sys- tem. Besides collaborating with business competi- tors, working with start-ups can also boost in- novation in the public transport sector. Start- ups with their new methods and out-of-the- box thinking generally drive modern solutions to specific problems. Furthermore, they bring the agility, digital DNA and high motivation that older and larger organizations often lack. Major German players like Deutsche Bahn and BVG are successfully teaming up with start-ups to introduce ground-breaking dig- ital solutions. As mentioned before, the ris- ing maintenance and training costs, cou- pled with the lack of skilled personnel are a burden for both operations and profitability in the sector. Munich based start-up VIS- COPIC is helping DB Netz to revolutionize training and professional development, us- ing augmented reality. Through 3-Dimen- sional drawing of heavy assets such as railroad switches and immersive content, training quality and performance on the job are being increased. Agile working methods The agile way rapidly gained fame in the software industry but was successively im- plemented in many other sectors. Being able to react accordingly and fast to rapidly changing business needs requires agility within organizations. Agile working meth- ods can help companies to enhance effi- ciency and productivity, and to reduce bu- reaucracy. In an agile environment, close collaboration between teams with different backgrounds allows fast, flexible and bet- ter product developments. One of the main and most important points is the relevance of the customer during product develop- ment. The customer is seen as a valuable part of the process, providing teams with valuable feedback and insights from a dif- ferent perspective, therefore enhancing the quality and acceptance of final prod- ucts.
- 16. 16 Conclusion In the wake of digitalization and favorable policies linked with climate protection in Germany, public transport is being offered a unique tailwind to transform into a much more performant, reliable and profitable sector. On a national and European level, large funds and support pro- grams have been leveraged to make public transport more attractive and efficient. Despite all the challenges and customer dissatisfaction, the demand for public transport services in Ger- many is steadily rising. However, larger investments in newer fleets and modern infrastructure alone will not be enough. Companies must additionally excel at developing thoroughgoing strategies and intelligent processes. Further, they should gain more agility to quickly adapt to faster-evolving business environments. Technology and digital tools provide a strong fundament to improve and automate processes, enhance customer experience, introduce new products and business models. Furthermore, they represent the main pillars of the fourth industrial revolution. Although each industrial rev- olution so far had faced skepticism and sometimes even rejection from public opinion and workforces, it is important to remember that they brought mankind and economies considera- ble advancements. In fact, digitalization is not about replacing the workforce, but mainly about handling tasks easier, smarter and faster. Having said that, the main challenge will not only be to implement innovative technologies, but also to successfully align the whole organization with a common vision and goal. This will require leaders who can inspire, empower and lead employees to find their contribution. Be- yond that, corporate culture will continue to play a major role in value creation and competi- tiveness.
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