Mobility4All in Mittweida – Blockchain technology in our everyday mobility

Closing of the Mobility Roaming Pilot in Saxony, Germany.

Seamless mobility roaming enabled by bloXmove’s decentralized blockchain technology – since April this year we have been part of the Mobility4all initiative in Mittweida and worked on bringing this joint vision to life. In the last months we have researched, tested, and learned about mobility ecosystems together with the project partners University of Mittweida, Blockchain Showcase Region Mittweida, Volksbank, Mocci and TIER. Seeing a Mobility Blockchain Platform in use and doing extensive field tests in collaboration with TIER which brought e-scooters not only into the city but also to more rural areas were highlights of the project. After the closing presentation last week, we are happy to share the results and conclusions from 9 months of work. 

Project results from the 9-month-journey 

The goal of the collaboration set in the beginning of 2022 was to create a first pilot project to test and roll out our shared idea of frictionless mobility around the city of Mittweida in Saxony, Germany. With the University of Mittweida and the local ‘Blockchain Showcase Region Mittweida’ the city is a prominent hub for blockchain technology in Germany and brought the advantage of a greenfield approach as the region isn’t overrun with existing providers. This meant that the team could truly test out the challenges of rural areas, bringing mobility concepts to the end consumers and implementing decentralized technology to handle first test transactions. With Mocci and TIER joining the project along the way we were able to bring an e-scooter fleet to the city and not only offer the residents of Mittweida micro-mobility options but also operate in real-life conditions. Thanks to the immense support the initiative received from both the private and the public sector but most importantly the city of Mittweida itself, the team could gather a lot of relevant data. From mobility options, movement patterns to user acceptance and the technical implementation process – we were able to experience everything with first-hand data. Now the snow has started, and the e-scooters are not on the road anymore, but only for winter sleep. 

 bloXmove NFTicket got implemented 

We recently launched our brand new NFTicket protocol which offers functionalities from vouchers, collectibles, to certificates and mobility tickets. The origin of this protocol lies in the concept of decentralized mobility solutions. NFTickets are an obvious mechanism to use for access-based services such as ride-hailing, public transport, concerts, or sports events. While concert and event tickets are “check-in” only, mobility requires “check-in/check-out” (CI/CO) ticketing, where a ticket is used to start the service, but payment can only be calculated and settled after the service has been delivered. This is the most advanced functionality our NFTickets offer which could be implemented in the token flow of the M4all solution. 

Technical excursion in a nutshell – 4 core ingredients 

Components of the decentralized pilot system

Closing of the research project phase, only the beginning of the work towards a blockchain-based Mobility Roaming vision 

What’s next? The outcomes are great, but we also analyzed room for improvement: 

• We were not fast enough in onboarding more mobility partners and developing the foundation-based governance with a clear business model 
• Partners like mocci postponed the hardware delivery to Q1 2023 
• Intensify the participation of the web3 communities into open-source testing and development 

What sounds like 3 gaps is only the chance for the next year:  

So, our promising answers to that: mocci will extend the micro mobility offer by Q1 next year with their e-bikes, so there will be even more options for the users. The project team will check and define the idea of building a “decentralized mobility” community which can further develop open-source components. We could gather a broad range of research results and development and stakeholder requirements to enable a functioning mobility platform. With this information the project partners are now well equipped to transfer the concept to new and similar markets. 

From Mittweida to other countries 

For bloXmove this means we will use everything we learned for our emerging market strategy and the mobility platform in Nigeria – which will be launched in Q1 2023. But also, other emerging countries in Africa or South America could be interesting as the pressure on the current system created by inflation and aggregator models is steadily increasing. For us as one software provider it was especially rewarding to see part of our blockchain solution in action and prove that mobility can work without a centralized server backend but also where the limits are. The details and test result we got from implementing a blockchain client into the vehicles will now be our blueprint for following hardware projects to integrate bikes, cars, scooters – maybe even airplanes and space shuttles to Mars? One step at a time. 

A very big thank goes out to all partners and doers of the M4All initiative, with your drive, trust, and willingness to just try something new. It needs more players and places to give start-ups a chance and test out new approaches, because that’s how we revolutionize and optimize existing systems – like in the power and mobility spaces. 

Michael Ascheron Hochschule Mittweida Blockchain Showcase Region Mittweida TIER Mobility Ralf Busse Philip James Douglas 🚲 Felix Holtmeier Harry Behrens