GIZA — The future of rural public transportation
A not too far-fetched science-fiction story about a public transportation company that will make living in rural areas more attractive and owning a car less necessary.
Klara
Florian, are you ready?
Florian
Yes, I am.
Klara
Hi everyone and welcome to this week’s edition of the Next Mobility Podcast! My name is Klara, and I am having an extremely exciting guest here with me today. So happy we finally managed to meet here for the Podcast. Welcome, Florian!
Florian is the founder and CEO of GIZA, the thriving European mobility company which he founded back in 2021 in cooperation with Renault. It’s often described as the fusion of bus and taxi.
GIZA has turned the transportation market upside down and has become one of the rising stars of Europes tech industry.
But before I start telling you all of this, let’s better ask himself. Florian, why do you think GIZA has become so successful as the mobility solution for rural areas — I mean, your growth figures are outstanding and you are in media everywhere.
Florian
Sure, and thanks for having me Klara.
In rural areas it is much more difficult to create a functioning and economically sustainable public transportation system. Especially when the goal is to replace private cars completely and not just provide a partial commuting option. Trains and busses are reasonable options, but very limited in the degree of personal mobility they actually provide.
If we want short walking distances, we have to come close to the peoples homes. If we want to be fast in transportation, we aren‘t allowed to make many stops. If we want to offer a frequent or on-demand service, we need to have many vehicles and be close by the passenger all the time.
Trains are only good for high demanded, main routes. They are not feasible for everyday tours to the supermarket or the gym. Further are distances to individual homes often very long and intervals not very convenient.
Busses are a better solution when there is less demand and therefore get closer to peoples homes, but still intervals are often bad and walking distances still not convenient.
It’s not possible to connect each more or less isolated household with one of the common transportation systems. This isn‘t a problem in cities. There are always enough people in certain area to have an economically working public transportation system.
As a consequence, the vast majority of households uses the car every day. Car-pooling improves the ecological and economical impact, but doesn‘t bring comparable freedom in mobility. The car remains indispensable.
Worst off are people which aren’t allowed to drive because they are too old, too young, or just don‘t own a car. They are totally dependent on others to be mobile at all.
For quite a while I was brainstorming for a solution. How to give mobility to everyone. How to get rid of the need to own an expensive and rarely used car — I mean they are parked 95% of the time.
I was thinking about a similar approach to what VW created with MOIA an intelligent, dynamic bus route network. But letting smart buses or autonomous taxis drive around isn‘t the solution either. We would need so many vehicles to offer proper waiting and traveling times than economically feasible.
I was having a beer with a friend while we talked around some wild ideas to solve this problem. At that night the idea of GIZA was born. Technologies like autonomous driving, increased battery capacities and AI played us into the cards. We could implement our Cap-Carrier network together with Renault within 22 months. Our test balloon with the first carrier prototype was a blast in southern Germany, in area of Lörrach, back in 2023.
The core idea is to set up a bus network where each bus is functioning as a kind of aircraft carrier. But in our case the buses don‘t carry aircraft, but small self-driving, electric vehicles — our Caps. These buses run back and forth a pre-defined route in a certain interval, similar to classic buses. The interval depends on the demand for the given area and time of the day. They drive on main traffic routes which connect the villages and start and end in larger cities or traffic hubs of the region.
Each of these buses, we call them Carriers, carries 8 to 16 Caps. The Caps connect to the carrier from both sides.
Each Cap has two seats and is itself a mini electric car. They are only 1.2 meter long and have a range of a little less than 30 km. They are compact, small, light and best of all, they only drive autonomously. No steering wheel build in.
A Carrier is basically a bus with 16 to 32 seats, where the seat pairs itself can drive away from and back to the Carrier. The Cap doesn‘t need to go back to the same Carrier, it can be a different one. They dock on or off whilst the Carrier is driving. No need to waste time for that manoeuvre. When docked, the Cap’s batteries are recharged and it can make longer distances on higher speeds.
Here is how it works for a passenger:
I grab my smartphone, open the GIZA app and put in my destination. I see the price and that a Cap arrives in 4 minutes. The expected time until I’ll arrive at my friends house is 17 minutes. I confirm the offer and immediately get a confirmation that my Cap will arrive soon in front of my house. It will wait for me for exactly 2 minutes, before it will leave.
My Cap will be the next free Cap of the Carrier that will soon pass the main traffic route in my region. The Cap docks off the Carrier during the ride and drives autonomously to my house. It waits and I get a push notification on my smartphone with the info and the latest time I have to get in.
I get into the Cap and if the ride is very short, it drives me autonomously there and drops me off. Then it drives back to meet the next passing Carrier with a free slot. There it docks on, charges its batteries and can be docked off for the next booking.
For a longer ride the Cap drives me to the next incoming Carrier, docks on and travels a longer distance at higher speed while saving energy. It also might switch the carrier during the ride few times. In the destination region the Cap docks off, drives to the destination and then again looks to meet the next incoming Carrier.
The whole travel duration is only slightly longer than by using the car.
We have managed to create a kind of mothership-drone-autobus-system. Thanks to electric and autonomously driving cars and a lot of AI-powered orchestration of all vehicles.
The AI forecasts the demand for the Carriers in a certain area and sends them out automatically. It further decides which Cap will be sent to the passenger and at which Carrier it will dock on an again. These seem to be single decisions but they need to be harmonically orchestrated across a giant moving network of vehicles.
This network provides an extremely high degree of mobility and comfort for the rural population on a very economical level.
It’s the fusion of bus and taxi. It’s like the seat of the bus is coming to you, picking you up, making the ride in the bus and then brining you to your final destination. Not just to the nearest bus station.
Florian
We now cover 10% of Germany’s rural population and have more than halved private car traffic in the regions. The acceptance is amazing, and we are currently expanding our operations in France and the Benelux countries. We’re driving 175,000 Caps a day and transporting over 5 million people.
Our service does it basically by itself. Our Caps and Carriers catch people’s attention and everybody starts talking about them, and they want to try. The first ride is free and most of the people are becoming frequent travellers. It’s incredible.
Currently, we are planning together with Siemens and Alstom a transeuropean maglev system. A magnetic levitation train for our Caps. You can get into your Cap at home, be taken by a Carrier to the nearest station and from there, without having the train to stop, travel across Europe at high-speeds of around 500 km/h.
Within 3 hours I can travel from a small village in Brandburg to a friend’s place in Paris. Door to door; purely electric; for less than 50 EUR. That is otherwise a 6–10h trip.
Klara
Wow, that sounds like a real disruption not only for the car industry but also for the railway and aircraft industry. Do you have plans to let your Caps fly as well?
Florian
The idea exists, but this brings completely new technical challenges. The whole system follows the hop-on-and-off principle. This is not so easy for planes in the air. But for trips within continental Europe, the maglev system will be faster than flying anyway. Maybe we’ll have some drone carriers to make hopping over to Islands possible.
There is a new trend in Germany we seem to have caused. People start moving away from the cities. We already see price drops of urban real estate and rents in Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart. People consider living further away from big, expensive cities with the newly gained mobility of GIZA.
Klara
Now I understand why it’s so difficult to get you on my podcast. You seem to be very busy turning Europe upside down.
Florian, thank you very much for this great insight into GIZA and your plans for the future. We wish you and your company all the best!
Florian
Thank you and great we finally managed to make this podcast together.
Klara
Alright everyone, that’s it from the Next Mobility Podcast, today with the amazing story of Florian, founder and CEO of GIZA. On behalf of the whole crew say goodbye, thank you for listening and hopefully until next week.
Don‘t forget to try out GIZA if not yet done already.
📖 Tales from the future (series)
Tales from the future are a collection of science-fiction stories which all play in Europe in the years 2025 to 2050. Each story circles around a certain technology I came up with, which isn’t too Star-Trek. I love to make up my mind around technological ideas and their impact on mankind. Because I don’t have the financial abilities to proceed every technological dream I have (contrary to to Elon Musk), I decided to use this series to inspire others with my wild ideas about a prosperous and more utopian than dystopian future. Happy to hear what you think!
