PubliCar Uzwil
Spotlight on modal split
Bühler AG in Uzwil founded Mobilitätsallianz Ostschweiz (Eastern Switzerland Mobility Alliance) together with the Canton of St. Gallen, the municipality of Uzwil and the OSTWIND fare network. The goal of this flagship project was to reduce emissions generated by commuter mobility by 30 percent by 2025 and to create incentives for employees to sustainably adapt their mobility behaviour.
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Background
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Bühler AG is an important employer in the Uzwil region. The company is aiming to reduce the location’s carbon footprint by 60 percent by 2030. The new mobility concept, which was launched on 1 September 2024, is based on an AI-driven data analysis conducted by 42hacksTarget not accessible and aims to provide 80 percent of employees with a good public transport alternative to driving.
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Several measures have been defined as part of the mobility concept to promote the use of public transport and reduce emissions. These include an attractive public transport package for employees, the introduction of rental scooters/bikes, as well as discounts on bikes and e-bikes.
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A core part of this was the launch of a door-to-door bus service, which picks up employees from within a radius of up to 8 kilometres and takes them home at the end of the working day. These initiatives are designed to ensure employee flexibility, enhance public transport services and promote sustainable company mobility.
Goals
- Encouraging the use of public transport
- Reducing emissions from commuter traffic
- Shift in traffic from motorized private transport to public transport
- Alleviate the parking situation at Bühler HQ
- Cut the number of private journeys made by employees by pooling these journeys
Results
Journeys and passengers
Demand increased steadily during the pilot phase. In the last month of operation (December), demand more than doubled compared to the first month, with 49 passengers per day.
A total of 2,213 people used the service during its four-month operating period. The journeys were most frequently used between 6 a.m. – 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. – 5 p.m.
In principle, the area around Uzwil and the Bühler headquarters is already very well served by the existing public transport services. However, testing of an on-demand, mixed-usage service for employees in the vicinity of the Bühler headquarters, and at off-peak times for passengers from the municipalities, proved instructive and unique in this form.
For follow-up projects, it should be examined whether such offers can be jointly financed by the participating companies, the municipalities and the cantons.
In light of developments in the field of automated driving, such services could play an increasingly important role in the future.
Project period
2 September – 20 December 2024, Monday – Friday
A key characteristic of this pilot operation was that the vehicles were used at peak times (5.40 to 8.15 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m.) just for journeys to/from Gupfenstrasse with the company Bühler.
