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of the project association MONOCAB OWL for the REGIONALE festival UrbanLand Sommer in the district of Lippe
 
 

MONOCAB OWL: The visionary monorail for new mobility in Lippe presents itself on May 1 at the REGIONALE festival UrbanLand Summer

As part of the REGIONALE festival UrbanLand Sommer on May 1, the project association MONOCAB OWL will present the eponymous project at BegaPark in Dörentrup: a gyro-stabilized monorail that is intended to revolutionize IPNV - local individual passenger transport - on single-track rural rail lines as a supplement to public transport and cars and to drive regional development in the Lippe district.
A particularly innovative regional development project from the district of Lippe will be presented on May 1, 2022 as part of the REGIONALE festival UrbanLand Sommer at BegaPark in Dörentrup-Humfeld - as an outpost to the main event in Lemgo: MONOCAB OWL, a project with A-status of the REGIONALE 2022.

The MONOCAB is a gyro-stabilized vehicle that balances on only one rail of a normal railroad track. MONOCABs are so compact and narrow that they can pass each other in opposite directions. Many of these autonomous, i.e. self-driving, cabins then travel in both directions on one track at the same time - and can be ordered like cabs for individual rides to the village or the city. Via app, around the clock, 365 days a year. In other words, IPNV: individual local passenger transport as an extension of public transport and as a supplement to the car.

The interim presentation in Dörentrup is intended to show the development status of the technical demonstrator, which is scheduled to travel over North Lippe rails this fall. Between 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on May 1, visitors can experience the test vehicles on a 30-meter test track and the work on the test benches in the hall at BegaPark, ask questions, watch demonstrations and participate in the naming contest for the two demonstrators. You will thus gain an exciting insight into the further development of a visionary idea for the mobility of tomorrow - and a preview of the premiere drive of the MONOCAB demonstrators on October 3 in the real test field. Starting at 3:30 p.m., there will be a panel discussion with the project partners and "Lippemobil", the Lippe municipal transport company. Short expert presentations on future mobility in rural areas are also planned.

The project is being implemented by a consortium of the OWL University of Applied Sciences, the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, Fraunhofer IOSB-INA, and Landeseisenbahn Lippe e.V. as initiator and idea provider. Overall project manager Professor Thomas Schulte: "The challenge now is to show that such vehicles can be realized safely, reliably and affordably."
Annette Nothnagel, head of REGIONALE 2022: "With REGIONALE 2022 in OstWestfalenLippe, we want to create convenient and demand-oriented mobility services from door to door. Especially in rural areas, the novel MONOCABs as on-demand transport on reactivated railroad lines can create the missing gap to regional and long-distance transport. This innovative idea of Landeseisenbahn Lippe e. V. is now to be implemented - a great contribution to UrbanLand OstWestfalenLippe."

MONOCAB mastermind Thorsten Försterling from Landeseisenbahn Lippe e.V.: "The future of mobility in rural areas is individual. A solution must be good and simple. It must be intuitive and feel natural."

Project funding is provided as part of the implementation of the Operational Program of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in North Rhine-Westphalia for the period 2014-2020 with co-financing from the Ministry of Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.