February 18, Travelers in Berlin will soon be able to use a single app to switch seamlessly between public transport, rental bikes, car-sharing and taxis without signing up for each service individually, officials said Monday. Lithuanian startup Trafi said Berlin will be the first major European capital to get a transport app that handles billing for all services centrally and requires only a single login.
Similar services are already available in Vilnius, Rio de Janeiro and Jakarta. So-called 'deep integration' apps, which remove the annoyance of dealing with multiple providers, are seen as important for cities trying to prevent people from clogging up congested roads with their own cars.
Berlin's aging transport systemโa maze of underground lines, trams, buses and commuter rail covering an area the size of Dallasโis straining as its population heads toward 4 million.
The capital's left-wing government has struggled in recent years to integrate new services such as ride-hailing firms, car-sharing companies, free-floating bikes and scooters into the existing infrastructure, some of which dates back to the 19th century. Knie was skeptical that large transport companies like Berlin's publicly owned BVG, which counts more than a billion passengers a year, are willing to do anything that might endanger their business model.
It wasn't immediately clear whether smaller companies will get an equal footing in the app, including to valuable real-time data on how customers are moving through the city.
