CARGO manager learned early on that this important mobility trade fair would have to be postponed. The reason: The venue Karlsruhe is in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, where particularly strict corona protection rules apply. In concrete terms, this means that “Alert Level II” has been declared and congresses of the planned size are prohibited. In addition, there were uncertainties among foreign visitors: Will I be allowed to enter Germany? Do I have to quarantine at my home when I return? The organizers – Messe Karlsruhe and the International Association for Public Transport UITP – decided to postpone the trade fair and the accompanying conference.
“We are confident that the pandemic situation will have calmed down by May 2022,” the CARGO manager was assured by the trade fair organisers. “Because the industry thirsts for face-to-face meetings. Congress lectures can easily be brought to an interested audience digitally as an online stream. But a virtual trade fair without the opportunity to see exhibits live and to communicate personally with the sales representatives is unsatisfactory, say all regular visitors.” For the first time, the premium event is to be held in two halls at the Karlsruhe Trade Fair Centre.
IT-TRANS is primarily concerned with public transport in cities and regions. These include keywords such as smart ticketing, smart cities, mobility-as-a-service and autonomous mobility. But among the exhibitors and the 180 speakers in 30 sessions, topics such as Internet security and cyber security, 5G and telecommunications, digital transformation, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things will also be discussed. And these are topics that have a wider reach than “just” passenger transport by tram, bus or train.
The digital shock the pandemic caused to many players in the industry is illustrated in a statement by the key notice speaker at IT-TRANS 2020, Christoph Bornschein. “COVID-19 is true disruption,” emphasizes the digital expert. “For years, “digital” was something that happened parallel to the core business of many corporations. Small innovation and digital units worked on digital products using agile methods without much overlap with the corporate reality. For many of them, this year was the real the stress test. Digitalization has taken hold across the board and it is becoming clear who is well prepared, with Covid accelerating the need to adapt. And it shows: Most companies of all sizes have increased their investment in digital equipment, technologies, and applications significantly. Suddenly “digital” has become a mean of survival.
There are many issues that companies can address right now. Those open positions that have not been filled for years because the right candidates were not available. Now the people are on the market.
The new system which employees didn’t warm up to? Right now, they are dependent on exactly these digital tools. New working methods and processes that should have been tested a long time ago? They’re happening now, whether you like it or not. In that sense Covid really can be a driver of change.
The challenge now is to ask the right questions: Which long-planned projects can be realized now that other topics have been dropped or deprioritised? And which projects can be implemented particularly well if every employee works from home? What has to happen so that one’s own products and services work for a company in quarantine?)”
Reports for the free IT-TRANS newsletter go via this link: https://www.it-trans.org/en/about/news/newsletter-sign-up/ More information about IT-TRANS: www.it-trans .org
Hermann Schmidtendorf, Editor-in-Chief
