TRANSPORT

On the Frankfurt bridges, proprietary roadways are being created on the outer sides of the bridge surface exclusively for the 400 bridge vehicles. These vehicles can drive there autonomously or centrally controlled without interference because no other road users interfere with them. This will create the world's largest autonomous traffic system on the Frankfurt bridges.

The bridge traffic is available not only to the 35,000 bridge residents, but also to Frankfurt's citizens and visitors: over 40 million passenger trips are made by the 400 vehicles each year.

The vehicle fleet is built in modern lightweight construction, the smaller vehicles as e-cars, the larger ones as hydrogen vehicles. In order to do justice to the varied ambience of Frankfurt's bridges, large parts of the fleet are vintage car replicas from all over Europe, supplemented by ultra-modern futuristic vehicles: In this way, a traveling transport museum is being created on Frankfurt's bridges - that can be experienced live.

Individual transportfor all

In the case of the Frankfurt bridges, all facets of an optimal transport system were considered

Autonomousdriving and safety

Centrally controlled traffic shortens waiting and travel times, reduces braking with tire abrasion and prevents accidents

Vehicle fleet: Modern classic cars

Centrally controlled traffic shortens waiting and travel times, reduces braking with tire abrasion and prevents accidents

Sustainabilitythroughtechnology

On Frankfurt's bridges, vehicles powered by hydrogen and electricity completely replace internal combustion engines

A vehicleconcept in detail

Buses, trains and cars arrive directly when needed, waiting times are eliminated, journeys are quiet and relaxed

Logistics & Vision

Buses, trains and cars arrive directly when needed, waiting times are eliminated, journeys are quiet and relaxed

You can download the complete TRANSPORT topic page here as a PDF presentation - presentation Transport

In the case of the Frankfurt bridges, all facets of an optimal transport system were considered

Around 400 vehicles can not only beautify Frankfurt's bridges and delight residents with their smart appearance, but also provide passengers with an adequate substitute for their personally owned cars thanks to their exceptional comfort. With the traffic model on the Frankfurt bridges, autonomous driving, sustainability, multifacetedness and, last but not least, punctuality and reliability in local passenger transport can be combined.

Content: The bridge transport system offers many advantages, both for passengers and for residents

It is more pleasant to travel on the bridges using local transport services than to drive your own car: waiting and travel times are significantly reduced.

For individual needs, cars can be summoned via app similar to Uber. This makes it possible to offer adapted vehicles with high priority, especially for people with mobility restrictions.

Like all offers on the bridges, transportation is provided at affordable prices.

Since the hydrogen and battery-powered vehicles are particularly quiet, bridge traffic is also extremely pleasant for residents to the right and left of the bridge.

Getting to your destination better and more comfortably with buses and trains than with your own car

Around 200 autonomous buses and streetcars and almost 100 cars provide a local transport experience on Frankfurt's bridges that beats your own car by far in terms of comfort and environmental compatibility.

You call up a vehicle tailored to your needs via an app and wait just a few minutes until you are "picked up". Everything works reliably, on time, smoothly, comfortably and cleanly.

Buses and trains arrive "on demand" instead of strictly according to schedule

Autonomous transportation offers numerous other advantages: Waiting times at stations are shorter, because there are no more schedules, the vehicles come "on demand." For one thing, you can enter where you want to go at the station - the system processes and serves this demand immediately. But you can enter in your app, while still sitting at the breakfast table, that you want to walk to the next station in 10 minutes and where you want to go - the system will then send a vehicle precisely when you arrive at the station. Or, you can share your location and the system itself will know when you will be at the station. In addition, the system is self-learning. If you leave for work every morning at about the same time after breakfast, then the system does a kind of "prearrangement": it knows how many people are leaving at what time from this station to a certain other station. What is particularly convenient is that, despite a lower maximum speed, you get to your destination faster and that the driving style is smooth, because there are no more surprises and traffic jams caused by other, individually controlling road users.

The travel time in local passenger traffic on the Frankfurt bridges can be optimally used

Read, work and relax on the phone, chat with friends or simply look out the window instead of getting worked up at the wheel about a traffic jam, other drivers or a lack of parking spaces: That's the advantage of driving on Frankfurt's bridges.

On the bridges there is no pointless extension of travel time by stopping at empty stations

The "On Demand" system instead of timetables allows buses and trains to be called via a special app. Those who don't have a smartphone at hand can also order the vehicles via request buttons at the stations. This means that vehicles only stop at stations when passengers are boarding or alighting.

No pointless waiting at stations for bus or train - you enter your "on demand request" already on the way to the station

Users can tell the system when they need transportation as soon as they leave home: as soon as they enter the start and end stops, the system calculates which connections are needed.

Stations are placed on the bridges at intervals of 100 to a few hundred meters: you have correspondingly short distances from any point on the bridge to the next station

There is a station every few hundred meters. This is the only way to make autonomous transport an acceptable substitute for individual transport: sometimes you park your car 100 or 200 meters away.

For even more convenience, individually autonomous cars can also be called via app.

Those who still prefer to travel in an individual car can simply call up an autonomously controlled individual car via the bridge app. This, too, is a component of the bridge's local public transport system. Like the buses and trains, these vehicles have a particularly colorful and unusual design.

Transportation on the bridges adapts individually to the needs of passengers

Car - Because you are in a hurry and want to get directly to your destination, because you are traveling with luggage and need a lot of storage space, or simply because you prefer to travel alone rather than with strangers, you sometimes need a personal vehicle. The cars are adapted to the various needs and depending on your mood and needs, you can call the right car for a small extra charge via the bridge app, similar to a cab or Uber, but much cheaper.

In the future, you don't necessarily have to own a car

For many people, cars are not just a means of transportation. They are an expression of an attitude to life or carry memories with them.

The Brückenflotte makes up for this by having cars for every mood and occasion in its fleet: so you can go to the swimming lake with your friends in a Bully, to the opera in an elegant vintage car or to the club evening in a UFO.

Experts on the Topic

TUM - Lehrstuhl für Fahrzeugtechnik - IFM – Institut für Fahrerassistenz und vernetzte Mobilität - Hochschule München Fakultät für Maschinenbau, Fahrzeugtechnik, Flugzeugtechnik - Maglev Board

Whether you want to take your bike or your pet - there are vehicles for every need

The bridges have bike lanes on the west arm: once you get to the downtown ring, you can call a "bike vehicle".

Special carts for pet owners also make it possible to quickly take the cat or dog to the vet or arrange to go for a walk in the city forest.

A special service concept for special needs: Accessibility, strollers, dogs, luggage and bicycles - there is a transport service for everyone

For people in wheelchairs, parents with small children or strollers, or even for passengers with knee problems, for example, there are a variety of special vehicles that make getting on and off extremely easy. There are only a few of them in vintage look, but for all vehicles of this kind, no limit was set to creativity.

Not only less waiting time but also a 75% faster transport service for people with disabilities are the goal

This means that if other passengers have to wait 6 minutes for a vehicle during peak times, for example, people with reduced mobility receive their desired vehicle after just one and a half minutes. Automatic prioritization of these vehicles by the control computer also makes it possible to achieve faster transport services: All vehicles with passengers requiring accessibility have priority over other vehicles in bridge traffic. Only the fire department, ambulances and other emergency vehicles enjoy an even higher priority.

Many classic cars are converted for use as barrier-free vehicles

Futuristic vehicles in particular can be designed to be barrier-free from the outset - the flower boxes on this barrier-free creative vehicle need to be watered and maintained at night in the maintenance loops at the ends of the bridge

But people with walking disabilities or in wheelchairs can also use all the other classic cars on Frankfurt’s Bridges for adventure rides: with the help of the operator kiosks

Unfortunately, historic vehicles are usually not equipped to be barrier-free, and in everyday traffic it is beyond the scope of personnel to keep qualified assistants on hand in case people with walking disabilities want to board. On the Frankfurt Bridges, people in wheelchairs or with other impairments find it more pleasant anyway to travel in the specially designed, preferentially and quickly arriving vehicles in pure everyday transport, when they want to get from A to B quickly. But if they want to make an experience journey with one of the old-timers, they need to announce it only at one of the operator kiosks: They are in contact 24/7 with all bridge personnel and ensure that staff and auxiliary equipment are available at the registered times to make it possible for people with walking disabilities to get on and off the train - similar to Deutsche Bahn.

The bridge pass: access for all

For more people to use public transport, it has to be affordable. Especially for people with less money. That's what the Brückenpass was designed for (which is also available as a bridge app with QR code)

Transportation on the bridges - luxury at affordable prices

For about 25 euros a month, anyone living in Frankfurt and the surrounding area can buy a bridge pass, on which, among other things, the ticket to the bridge traffic is loaded (on the bridge pass can also be loaded other services -> Buildings&Bridges). Pensioners, students, unemployed and other needy people pay only half.

The bridge pass entitles them to ride the bridge passenger service as often and as long as they wish. It does not matter whether they use the buses or trains.

Important: The bridge itself is free of charge. You only need the ticket if you want to use the local transport.

The bridge transport system offers many advantages not only to passengers but also to local residents: Because they have an extra transport service on their doorstep, which is also exceptionally quiet

Bridge traffic is not only pleasant for passengers, but also for local residents. Since both hydrogen and battery vehicles run electrically, they are: quiet. In addition, the vehicles do not have to drive over curbstones manhole covers and other elevations as they do in the city. They move on almost perfectly flat asphalt most of the time. Residents can therefore enjoy the many colorful and unusual vehicles on the bridges without having to hear them.

The biggest advantage, however, is that they now have a transportation option right outside their front door that allows them to get to other parts of the city that were previously difficult to reach or required multiple transfers.

The roadway of the future will not only be level and pleasant to drive on, but will also be planted with vegetation in the center of the roadway.

In the city of the future, roadways will be greenable in the middle, since autonomously centrally controlled traffic will eliminate overtaking maneuvers and vehicles will travel in their lane over long distances, so that - similar to rails already today - the middle section of the roadway will be greenable within the minimum wheelbase.

Demarcation from pedestrians walking along beside the roadways is accomplished either by aesthetically appropriate railings or also by shrubs and bushes that can be planted along the street in the parking spaces that are eliminated.

The vision

•If autonomous traffic with low maximum speeds achieves the same transport performance through intelligent control as vehicles traveling twice as fast today and

•when the risk of accidents is drastically reduced by the lower maximum speeds and autonomous control;

•if everyone always has a vehicle drive up only when they need it, and

•when automated maintenance processes as well as significantly fewer accidents mean that the vehicles hardly suffer any damage,

then fewer newly produced vehicles will be needed - in return, correspondingly more effort can be put into the individual vehicle. This in turn can lead to a new design world in which vehicles represent a genuine cultural enrichment of life.

Experts on the Topic

TÜV Süd autonomes Fahren - Fraunhofer IEE Institut für Energiewirtschaft und Energiesystemtechnik - TU Stuttgart Institut für Straßen- und Verkehrswesen - TÜV Rheinland intelligente Verkehrssysteme

The bridge traffic system not only offers benefits to direct users, but also serves as a model for traffic in the city of the future

On the Frankfurt bridges, the use of vehicles that "drive up" on demand immediately, cheaply and safely can be experienced in an exemplary manner and accelerate the change in behavior among the population that has already begun: already today, car-sharing is enjoying ever greater acceptance, even if it is still associated with many disadvantages. This may change in the future as a result of a world with autonomously driving vehicles: Because for many people, other things on their doorstep are already more important than their own car. And if, in the future, the right autonomously driving car always pulls up at the push of a button, as if with a chauffeur, and you no longer need your own - only then will fewer parking spaces reallybe needed.

The freed-up areas can be planted with planters, beds and, of course, trees or used by "urban gardening" enthusiasts. The cityscape is changing

Conclusion: A model local transport system is being created on the bridges that offers more advantages than private cars for all concerned.

The fully autonomous driving system results in significant time savings for all passengers.

Individualized transportation service replaces individual ownership of a vehicle, at affordable prices in a luxurious configuration that individuals could not afford.

Hydrogen and battery-powered vehicles keep the air clean and eliminate the noise pollution of conventional traffic.

Autonomous driving and safety

Vehicle fleet: Modern classic cars

Sustainability through technology

A vehicle concept in detail

Logistics and Vision

The Bridge World

Special Quarters

Bridge Variety