Industrial Automation branch INA 
On the move with "MonoCabs" on single-track railroad lines
"MonoCabs" are compact and narrow and they are supposed to travel on only one rail. The big advantage of the small cabs: on single-track railway lines, two automatically running "MonoCabs" could roll in both directions at the same time and thus strengthen passenger transport by rail, especially in rural areas. Stability is given to the very narrow vehicles, which are to be bookable on call - on-demand - by a gyroscopic system that balances them while they are in motion.
For this future-oriented project in the region of East Westphalia-Lippe, Minister Hendrik Wüst handed over four funding decisions totalling 3.6 million euros to the project partners:
Privacy warning
With the click on the play button an external video from www.youtube.com is loaded and started. Your data is possible transferred and stored to third party. Do not start the video if you disagree. Find more about the youtube privacy statement under the following link: https://policies.google.com/privacyThe TH Ostwestfalen-Lippe, the FH Bielefeld, Fraunhofer IOSB-INA in Lemgo and the Landeseisenbahn Lippe e.V. jointly aim to demonstrate the feasibility of the MonoCab vehicle concept and to drive the first prototypes on a test track. They also want to prove that the project can be economically viable.
Minister Hendrik Wüst: "Mobility is changing profoundly right now. With the MonoCabs OWL, we want to strengthen rail mobility in rural areas. Our goal is to reactivate abandoned infrastructure in order to better connect suburban regions to the centres. Ideas and projects for the mobility of the future are developed here."
Innovative technologies for the mobility of the future are to be researched, developed, produced and applied at an early stage in North Rhine-Westphalia, making mobility cleaner, safer and better.
The project partners are making an important contribution to this with "MonoCab OWL". Project leader Professor Thomas Schulte: "The challenge now is to show that such vehicles can be realised safely, reliably and affordably."
MonoCab is a project of the REGIONALE 2022 "We are shaping the new UrbanLand OstWestfalenLippe". Its goal: to improve the connection of rural areas to the major and medium-sized centres in Ostwestfalen-Lippe and to facilitate the mobility of people without their own cars.
Annette Nothnagel as head of the REGIONALE 2022: "With the REGIONALE 2022 in OstWestfalenLippe, we want to create convenient and demand-oriented mobility offers from door to door. In rural areas in particular, the innovative MonoCabs as on-demand transport on reactivated railway lines can create the missing gap to regional and long-distance transport. This innovative idea of the Landeseisenbahn Lippe e. V. is now to be implemented - a great contribution to the UrbanLand OstWestfalenLippe."
The project funding is part of the implementation of the Operational Programme of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in North Rhine-Westphalia for the period 2014-2020 with co-financing by the Ministry of Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Minister Wüst handed over the funding notifications during the alliance tour in Bielefeld. There he informed himself about innovative mobility projects from the OWL region.
Judith Pirscher, District President in Detmold: "MonoCab is an innovative idea from East Westphalia-Lippe that can make an important contribution to networked, digital and demand-driven mobility, especially in rural areas. In addition to the technological innovation content of this monorail vehicle, the intensive and close cooperation of the four project sponsors is exemplary. The project impressively demonstrates OWL's innovative strength in shaping tomorrow's mobility."
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."
