The STEAM project aims to analyse and design future concepts for the use of vehicles for passenger and freight transport in a holistic and user-centered manner. These vehicle use concepts highlight the potential for use in times of low demand, which results from the intersection of individual, public and freight transport and their optimal use.

To this end, the existing scheduled services will be supplemented by minibusses, taking into account individual user and usage requirements to be identified in the project, thus making them holistically more flexible and more efficient. The resulting semi-flexible bus routes serve the mobility demand in the main and secondary traffic periods of classical urban scheduled transport on a demand-driven and efficient basis. To achieve the project objectives, the project comprises: (1) the design and simulation of electrified, semi-flexible bus lines, (2) the perspective integration of urban delivery traffic into semi-flexible lines, (3) the development and prototypical implementation of a suitable, modular vehicle use concept and (4) the validation of the simulations and the testing of the vehicle use concepts in a living lab.

Finally, concrete recommendations for action are derived by linking simulations and the reallabs to shape a long-term sustainable development opportunity for urban mobility in Munich and other metropolitan regions. The partners and other stakeholders will be iterative during the project period and based on the validated and tested knowledge, requirements for future vehicles and their interiors. In addition, the holistic, user-centered approach enables innovative operating concepts and thus business models to be designed and analyzed.