On-demand fleet: moovel Group and SSB AG plan an additional mobility service for the Stuttgart local public transport network

• Stuttgart will be the test area for a new form of mobility
• Pilot operation starts on December 14, 2017 under the name 'Flex Pilot'
• 'Pooling' system groups together similar journey requests and enables ridesharing

Stuttgart, December 12, 2017. The moovel Group and the Stuttgarter Strassenbahnen AG (SSB) will be piloting a new mobility service in Stuttgart, which customers can book flexibly and on demand. The new on-demand service will be tested on selected days from December 14, 2017 under the name 'Flex Pilot'. The service will then start with the SSB as operating company under the name ' SSB Flex' in the first half of 2018.

The pilot operation by the moovel Group serves as preparation for the launch of the on-demand service by the Stuttgarter Strassenbahnen AG in the first half of 2018: the pilot operation will run on the evenings of December 14 - 16, 2017 under the name ' Flex Pilot' in the city center of the state capital of Baden-Württemberg and will be continued into the new year until the launch. The moovel Group 'Flex Pilot' fleet will initially include ten Mercedes-Benz V-Class cars, which can be booked using an app. During the test phase, the use of the new mobility service is free of charge. The 'Flex Pilot' app can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. The service with the SSB as operating company will then be launched in the first half of 2018 under the name 'SSB Flex'. All public transport travel options in the VVS area will be shown in the app together with all possible combinations with the 'SSB Flex' shuttle and all options can be booked and paid for directly in the app.

The new mobility service is based on the moovel on-demand platform, which enables the efficient operation of a demand-oriented, flexible fleet using intelligent journey management - so-called 'routing', and the grouping of trip requests - so-called 'pooling'. If several people also want to make a similar trip, the moovel on-demand algorithms pool the requests so that multiple passengers can share one vehicle ('ridesharing'). The routes are correspondingly dynamic with trip and arrival times as well as starting point and end stop being individually calculated in each case. The platform has been developed by the moovel Group GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler AG, with locations in Stuttgart, Hamburg and Berlin as well as in Portland, USA.

Modern crystal ball: algorithms calculate the expected demand in advance

The use of the on-demand service is very easy: the 'Flex Pilot' app locates the user and shows suitable shuttle connections to the desired destination. If a user chooses the on-demand service, he will be collected from a location within walking distance of his current position. For this, moovel has determined countless pick-up and drop-off points, so-called 'virtual stops' in the service area. In order to ensure that users travel from A to B as quickly as possible, the trip routes are continually recalculated and updated during the trip using real-time data on traffic and the local public transport network. Additionally, an algorithm calculates the expected demand in advance and thus enables accurate predictive fleet management. Similar trip requests are grouped together by the moovel on-demand algorithm so that several passengers share a car. The 'Flex Pilot' test area covers approximately 30 square kilometers and will be expanded if necessary during the course of the pilot phase. Ten Mercedes-Benz V-Class cars will be used for the test in Stuttgart and will be marked with the 'Flex Pilot' logo.

Cooperation between two Stuttgart mobility pioneers

Fritz Kuhn, Lord Mayor of Stuttgart and Chairman of the Board of SSB:

'Here, two traditional Stuttgart mobility pioneers have joined together to make local public transport even more attractive through the use of digitalization. This is a further, important step forward in the development of sustainable mobility in our time.'

Wolfgang Arnold, Technical Director and Board Spokesman of the Stuttgarter Strassenbahnen AG: 'We want to supplement the existing bus and train services with flexible, customer-friendly solutions and thus close any spatial and temporal gaps in the service. Our goal is to encourage an ever increasing number of inhabitants to use local public transport.'

Cooperation between the moovel Group and the SSB AG has become a tradition in Stuttgart. Two years ago, moovel launched the first mobility app, booking and payment included. In addition to journeys with car2go, mytaxi and Deutsche Bahn, local public transport tickets in the Baden-Württemberg capital can also be booked and paid for easily and directly in the moovel app. Over one million tickets for the Stuttgart Transport Association area have already been sold via the moovel app.

Jörg Lamparter, Head of Mobility Services at Daimler Financial Services: 'We are systematically working towards simplifying mobility in cities and making it more intelligent. Ridesharing, that is the sharing of trips, plays an important role. moovel on-demand unites all our strengths: intelligent routing including real-time data, the integrated booking and payment functions, and now also the pooling of trips.'

In the course of urbanization, the use of mobility changes. In cities in particular, mobility should be available anywhere and at any time - the desire for on-demand mobility increases. With car2go, the reinvention of carsharing, the mytaxi taxi app and the moovel mobility platform, the Daimler AG has played a decisive role in this trend over the last few years. With today's announcement, the moovel Group continues to fully accommodate this trend and expands its existing product portfolio with the moovel on-demand platform.

Further information is available on the Internet:

www.moovel-group.com

www.moovel-on-demand.com/flexpilot