"What have we here? Our communicative car front spoiler. It demonstrates how a self-driving vehicle could communicate with the outside world, namely by means of a display that can show a range of symbols. But the real key to fast and intuitive communication is the right choice of symbols, which is why we're looking forward to getting feedback from visitors to our pop-up store."

Casey Israel is a systems architect at the company Lumileds and works in advanced development of automotive lighting. Lumileds is a specialist in lighting solutions. The company's German branch, which employs around 9,000 people worldwide, is situated in Aachen. As part of the EMA initiative's "Living Lab Aachen", Israel heads the sub-project "Connected Vehicles" and focuses on the definition of communicative displays on cars for the EMA test circuit.
(Photo: Stadt Aachen)

"Here we have our digital assistant Alexa, who's hanging out just behind me. Not only does she answer questions – she also asks them. At the moment, she's interested in the expectations of visitors to our pop-up store on future mobility. We have revamped the good old photo booth into an interview booth and are inviting people to sit down and have a conversation with Alexa. We're collecting these interviews – which are kept anonymous, of course – and evaluating them by means of text mining. In this way, we're helping to keep novel mobility concepts consistently tuned to the prospective customers, and to achieve market success with the greatest possible degree of sustainability."

Andera Gadeib is the founder of Dialego AG, a market research company from Aachen that is active all over the world and ranks as an established strand of the DNA in the field of digital thinking and working. For this reason, Gadeib was appointed in 2017 to the "Young Digital Economy" advisory board of the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, and in 2018 to the NRW advisory board "Digital Economy".
(Photo: Stadt Aachen)

"This is the e.GO Kart, of course! It offers maximum driving pleasure for the leisure-time sector – off-road or on-road. In the EMA pop-up store, e.GO Mobile AG wants to show that e-vehicles are lots of fun, look attractive and can be extremely practical."

Markus Kowalski is a research expert at e.GO Mobile AG and, together with Isabell Pitre from the City of Aachen's Department for Economy, Science and Europe, heads the EMA initiative "Living Lab Aachen". The mission of the initiative is to collaborate with partners from industry, research and municipality in the development and implementation of solutions for future mobility.
(Photo: Stadt Aachen)

"Meet Carr-E, a personal mobility solution for customers in the city who want to complement their car with an additional micro-vehicle. It fits into the spare wheel recess of your car and can be used to transport luggage. Or you can stand on it yourself and have fun covering that "last mile" from your parked car to your destination. Furthermore, because it is equipped with a bluetooth transmitter, it will follow you wherever you go – which is very practical if you want to get from A to B in town and you're on foot with a lot of stuff to carry. If you want, you can try out the Carr-E for yourself in the pop-up store."

Alexandra Holz works at the European Ford Research Centre in Süsterfeldstraße. In Ford's Innovation Management and Mobility Research Department, she pursues intensive research into mobility solutions that will fit as perfectly as possible to the lifestyle of people in cities. For this, it is extremely important to find out exactly what the users' needs are.
(Photo: Stadt Aachen)

"Here we have a Velocity bicycle with which you can take a virtual cycling tour around Copenhagen – a city where cycling is a totally natural thing to do. Velocity bikes are shared e-bikes that you can currently pick up and drop off at 31 terminals situated around the whole city area. To make sure that this actually does lead to more people using bikes, we are expanding the cycling network with bike-prioritised routes and getting rid of hazard zones. Velocity bike sharing dovetails perfectly with use of buses, trains and car sharing. This will reduce noise, emissions, costs and space requirements for mobility in Aachen."

Armin Langweg is the coordinator for the City of Aachen's traffic planning. His job is to ensure that mobility in Aachen develops in a "city-friendly" direction.
(Photo: Stadt Aachen)

"This is a very compact and highly efficient battery module. It's part of an electrical drive that can also be used for SVEN – the small compact e-car of the Aachen start-up Share2Drive. SVEN is designed for car sharing and inner-city traffic and, in the future, will be self-driving."

Jürgen Ogrzewalla is the Senior Head of Department of Hybrid & Electromobility at FEV. The FEV Group, founded in Aachen in 1978 by Engineering Prize winner Franz Pischinger, is an internationally renowned service provider for the development and testing of innovative vehicle concepts through to series production readiness. In addition to the development of hybrid and electrical drive systems, the focus is also very much on functions for automation and autonomous driving as well as additional vehicle networking.
(Photo: Stadt Aachen)

"The partners of the Urban Air Mobility Initiative are currently exhibiting a package drone developed by the RWTH that has been flown as a package helicopter for the DHL. Later, we will be showcasing a model of the "Silent Air Taxi" that is being developed in a joint project by aviation experts from the FH Aachen and the RWTH. In the future, this technology could bolster cooperation between border towns, for example in the medical sector, and connect their residents better with each other and with nationwide hubs."

Dieter Moormann heads the RWTH Institute of Flight System Dynamics, which is a partner of the so-called Urban Air Mobility Initiative. The initiative is coordinated throughout Europe by Airbus – acting on behalf of the EU commission – and relies on local networks from business and science sectors. As part of such a network, Dieter Moormann and his team contribute their expertise and ideas. The City of Aachen – along with Maastricht, Hasselt, Heerlen and Liège – has also joined the initiative.
(Photo: Stadt Aachen)

"This is our Mobility Broker. This digital mobility platform – developed by Aachen's public transport company ASEAG – offers users bike or car sharing and bus tickets from a single source via PC or smart phone app. Simply register, make use of all the options with your customer card, and get a single invoice for the lot. Individualised mobility, flexible and easy. At the pop-up store, you can see for yourself how easy it is to use the Mobility Broker. On 15th December, representatives of ASEAG will be there in person to answer all your questions. By the way: Mobility Broker is also a suitable system for managing mobility for businesses and municipalities."

Isabell Brenner, ASEAG. For more than 130 years, ASEAG has been responsible for public transport in Aachen and the surrounding region. Its mission has always been to ensure and promote the mobility of people in Aachen through technological advances and further development. Over the years, horse-drawn omnibuses and rail-trams have come and gone, making way for today's ultra-modern low-floor buses, with which ASEAG currently transports more than 220,000 people a day.
(Photo: Stadt Aachen)

"This is the research vehicle 'SpeedE'. It was developed at ika as a tangible demonstration of the vast innovation potential of purely electrically powered vehicles. One example is the Steer-by-Wire technology explored in SpeedE, which makes wheel angles of up to 90° possible on the front axle. This means that the vehicle can turn on the spot – a huge advantage in inner-city traffic. The next step is to use SpeedE to explore autonomous driving."

Nico Depner is Team Leader for Vehicle Projects and Mobility Systems at the Institute for Automotive Engineering (ika) and Coordinator of the Future Mobility Center of the RWTH Aachen University.
(Photo: Stadt Aachen)

Michael Minis, Martin Wirtz und Stefan Heinz stehen neben ihrem "UrbanMove Demonstrator". "Er fasst die Ziele des Projekts UrbanMove zusammen, vermittelt den Besucherinnen und Besuchern des Pop Up-Stores einen Eindruck von der Buchung und Nutzung des autonom, elektrisch und vernetzt fahrenden Kleinbusses ,PeopleMover' und lädt sie ein, über den Hashtag #Daumenraus Feedback zu geben."

Martin Wirtz ist Projektmanager von UrbanMove bei der Stadt Aachen. Michael Minis und Stefan Heinz gehören zur Firma MOQO. Ihre Plattform verknüpft Fahrzeuganbieter, Nutzer, Zahlungsdienste, Datenauswertung, Flottenüberwachung und ermöglicht die Integration weiterer Smart Services. Zusammen mit den EMA-Partnern e.GO, Dialego sowie der Stadt Aachen und dem FIR e.V. bauen sie mit „UrbanMove“ ein Leuchtturmprojekt für smarte, datengetriebene und autonome bzw. automatisierte Elektromobilität auf.
(Foto: Stadt Aachen)