ioki

The Deutsche Bahn subsidiary ioki, a leading company in research and operation of autonomous transport and market leader for demand responsive transport in German-speaking countries, is the new technology partner of the EU-funded project AVENUE.

ioki will provide its specially developed technical interface for the project. The interface creates the prerequisite for combining autonomous driving and on-demand booking. In addition, the ioki software enables deep integration into the existing public transport system and MaaS apps. As the only company in the European market, ioki has experi-ence in high-volume fleet orchestration and simultaneous navigation of autonomous shuttles in real time.

“ioki’s vision is smart, integrated transport – whether driver-based or autonomous. We are pleased that we can contribute our know-how in the field of autonomous driving to this future-oriented EU project. With the findings from the AVENUE project, we are setting the course for autonomous and connected mobility in Europe,” said Dr. Michael Barillère-Scholz, Managing Director of ioki GmbH.

Pioneer for autonomous driving in public spaces
The software company ioki, which originates from Germany, has been pioneering auton-omous driving in public spaces since its founding. The first autonomous vehicle on Ger-man roads has been on the road since 2017 using the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary’s tech-nology. In 2019, another autonomous milestone was reached with the connection of the autonomous vehicle to rail transport. ioki’s smart platform also enables the first on-demand autonomous connection in Europe: in Karlsruhe, passenger operations for self-driving shuttles on demand started in May 2021.

ioki is entering a crucial phase in the AVENUE project. In winter, the first project shuttle will go into operation in Geneva. Within the framework of the project, further autono-mous shuttles on the streets of the participating European cities will provide important insights for autonomous regular operation.