Shared Responsibility for Shared Mobility: Community-Based Transportation in Germany

To serve rural areas efficiently and effectively, public transportation must have tools suitable to serve the small-scale and dispersed mobility needs typical of countryside settings. One way of achieving this is by giving more space to locally planned and operated services, to achieve better-tailored solutions and more cost-efficient ways of service provision. In the English-speaking world, this approach is known as “community transport” (CT). In Germany, “Gemeinschaftsverkehr” (as a loose translation of community transport) is a much more recent concept, although certain elements of CT have been in use for some time. This paper synthesizes and discusses how CT has evolved and (in part) been reinterpreted in Germany over recent years, in particular in the state of Baden-Württemberg. In addition to an overview of service models, the paper discusses some more general questions linked to the idea of CT, such as the potential tensions between “top-down” and “bottom-up” views on planning, formal/regulatory challenges, and the implications of a more heterogeneous set of stakeholders. The paper is based in part on dedicated research activities, but mainly on the author’s direct involvement as consultant and policy advisor.