With its nice coffee, armchairs, electric scooters and lots of people on laptops and tablet, Hypermotion feels more like it’s being held in the heart of Berlin or a creative or tech hub like San Francisco, Bangalore or Copenhagen than in Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital.
The event is an independent platform that showcases smart, intermodal mobility and logistics solutions. 138 companies – such as Siemens, Daimler, Streetscooter and FlixMobility – are presenting future-oriented solutions for tomorrow’s mobility. The number of startups taking part has more than tripled in comparison to last year’s première. The spectrum of topics ranged from the digitalisation of transport systems via innovative mobility concepts, through to bicycle traffic and transport electrification and sustainable logistics solutions.
“The transport and mobility turnaround is an essential task, which calls for numerous people, companies, parties and interest groups to pull together – and to do so in the same direction. Hypermotion provides the ideal setting for this,” said Member of Board of Messe Frankfurt, Detlef Braun in his opening key note address.
The Vice President Mobility and Logistics, Michael Johannes, added: “Here is where the future of mobility and logistics is made. We have an inspiring mix of an interactive fair, exciting conferences and the Hypermotion-Lab as an arena for start-ups, future innovators and established entrepreneurs.”
The new conference offered attendees the chance to hear upcoming mobility ideas. For example the city of Hamburg has opened its public travel system to other partners to get more attractive possibilities. Hamburg’s transport chief Hendrik Falk said: “We need a new definition for public transport. And we have to bring all the old and news systems together.” Hamburg is getting 1000 e-buses in the next year to replace its old diesel-buses. Falk also says a new app in Hamburg will start soon called ‘Switch’ which will handle all old and new travel systems.
Over three days at the Future Lab, the discussion was about the speed of change: “We shouldn’t wait anymore, we have to start now!” said Andreas Sujara from Streetscooter.
The companies showing off urban-mobility solutions include Doppelmayr, which links urban centres in Bolivia using cable cars. Other exhibitors presented intelligent sensor technologies that can be used to manage traffic flows in cities and so reduce air pollution. The Smart City Loop startup, for example, presented an environmentally-friendly solution developed for large cities and conurbations where palettes with goods are transported automatically through underground tubes.
Another highlight was the model of a space rover by Ispace Europe. The company aims to offer mobility in space and to the Moon.
Other subjects covered by the event include carsharing, smart mobility and smart parking, mobile ticketing applications for public transport, software for traffic planning and monitoring, digital innovation platforms, intelligent energy infrastructures and sustainable intermodal mobility solutions.
On the last day of Hypermotion, a very interesting and new view on the relation between Europe and China was expressed by Professor Sebastian Heilmann from the University of Trier at the ‘ZEIT-Conference’. “We will see in next year China as a global driver of new logistics networks and digital transformation. There will soon be good opportunities for European logistics business at all levels.” E-mobility cars from China, for example, will find new ways of transportation to Europe.
High-speed trains will be soon be connecting China and Central Europe. As a consequence, Helimann predicts we will see a new economic area for transport systems called Eurasia.
