Issue 03/11 - Siemens Mobility

Profile
“ Stop thinking within
boundaries”
Interview n Simone Köhler, Mobility Consultant at Siemens AG, about
the efficiency benefits of consulting teams assembled for a specific
project, the trend towards interdisciplinary urban planning, and her
professional need to look outside the boundaries of her own company.
Ms Köhler, thanks to your experience
as an international mobility consultant,
you must have a good overview. In your
opinion, which city has solved the problem
of mobility best of all?
Seen from a global perspective, there are
significant differences between cities. In
Europe, however, the cities with top class
mobility are quite close together. Zurich,
Vienna and Stockholm are among the
favorites. But Munich – my adopted
home – is also one of the front runners.
On the one hand, we have well developed
networks of public transport, cycle paths
and private transport. On the other, the
different modes of transport are well
coordinated with each other.
At the moment you are managing a
project in Portugal, and before that
you were working for a Chinese city.
What are your specific responsibilities
in such projects?
The focus of my work is the development
of strategic mobility concepts, with my
own professional emphasis being on
road traffic. In our team, in addi tion to
an extensive expertise in mobility, all
colleagues have their own specialty, for
example, rail or road transport, ports or
airports. But there are also different
aspects under which a problem can be
considered, such as economic assessments
or CO2 efficiency. This comprehensive
range of expertise makes it
possible to put together individual consulting
teams according to the customer’s
requirements – and thus to develop
truly customized solutions for each
customer.
How far into detail do you go with the
development of these concepts – right
down to the individual traffic light?
No, our concepts provide several essential
tools, but do not include any detailed planning.
We want to demonstrate different
ways of optimizing mobility and logistics
to our customers. Our task is to offer
holistic advice – not the specified technical
solution design.
So that means that although you work
at Siemens, you do not recommend
Siemens products?
That’s it. Although we present our own
portfolio, that is only for information purposes
and sometimes in order to illustrate
our conceptual approach. Working as a
consultant enables me to immerse myself
deeper in the subject and gives me the opportunity
to supervise the implementation.
To do this, we must always be able to
go beyond the boundaries of company-
internal thinking, as this is the only way
to give our customers the best solution.
And what exactly is the best solution
for your customers? What do they
consider to be most important – the
economic aspects, or the environmental
ones?
We try to find a happy medium. Ideally,
it would be possible to develop solutions
that offer advantages in both areas. For
instance, implementing a traffic management
system is sometimes economically
and environmentally preferable to, say,
constructing a tunnel. Basically, the financing
of the mobility infrastructure plays a
central role in every city. Here we explore
various optimization opportunities together
with our partners – from Public Private
Partnerships and intelligent financing
models through to congestion charges
and parking systems to provide separate
sources of revenue. We also investigate the
financial assistance facilities available to
the city from EU coffers. Where necessary,
our consulting approach goes even further,
including those overall success factors that
help create an attractive city, such as the
impact on the surrounding area and the
involvement of its citizens. In short, Mobility
Consulting’s core competence is that
we understand the challenges facing the
customer and can provide suitable, sustainable
solutions.
Speaking of the future: How do you see
mobility in – say – 2030?
The demand for mobility, which will certainly
rise, makes it essential to use existing
capacity as efficiently as possible. That
is why local public transport will be linked
to private transport more than ever, and
will become more important – to what
degree, will depend to a large extent on
the success of efforts to make the services
more attractive. I am convinced that intelligent
communication between transport
“ In the ideal case,
ecologically and
economically optimum
solutions
can be achieved”
providers and with the transport infrastructure,
together with integration of different
transport services and of the related data,
will play a decisive role by 2030.
And what trends are you seeing in the
field of urban planning? Will the focus
increasingly be on “green” cities – and
therefore on electric mobility?
Whether electric vehicles will actually be
the cure-all is not yet clear. There is certainly
a growing demand for alternative
types of propulsion. New jobs and housing
concepts are creating hubs within the city,
and this allows residents to live and work
within short distances. This will have the
effect, for example, of relieving rush-hour
traffic. But even if people’s demand for
mobility falls as a result, goods still need to
be transported. When we look at how the
planning process operates, there is a clear
trend away from the isolated analysis of
individual sectors such as construction or
transport, and towards an interdisciplinary
approach involving the development of
integrated solutions.
Finally, a personal question: If you wanted
a challenge for your next project – what
would it be?
The consultant’s dream is of course “mobility
planning on a greenfield site.” But
only a few of us are that lucky, because
it is very rare for a town to be designed
from scratch, completely drawn up on a
drawing board. So I have been looking for
a more realistic dream project: the development
of a strategic mobility plan for a
city that is close to gridlock. I can imagine
that to be a tremendously appealing
challenge, helping develop methods to
relieve congestion and ultimately create
a livable urban center and observe its
implementation and success. But my job
has so much to offer anyway. The most
exciting aspect for me is working with
different people like mayors, experts
from various agencies, engineers, architects
and our Siemens specialists, and
getting to understand the different perspectives
they have on mobility.
Ms Köhler, thank you for the interview. «
Simone Köhler:
Career milestones at a glance
• Born in 1974 in Heilbronn
• 1994-1996: Trained as an aviation
administrator at Lufthansa AG in
Cologne, Stuttgart, Frankfurt/Main,
Nairobi
• 1996-2001: Studied business
administration at Johann Wolfgang
Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main;
degree in business administration
• 1996-1998: Marketing coordinator
for sales in Europe and Africa,
Lufthansa Cargo AG
• 1998-2000: Pricing Executive,
Lufthansa Cargo AG
• 2000-2001: Consultant and project
manager at Integra GmbH in Bad
Homburg and Berlin
• 2002-2010: Various management
tasks in the field of consulting
at Siemens Business Services
and Siemens IT Solutions and
Services
• Since 2010: Principal Consultant
at Siemens Mobility
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