Dominik Nouri is co-founder and managing director of Veomo Mobility GmbH. We asked him about his vision for future mobility and his view on the digitization of parking garages.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and about your experience in the mobility sector.
I am one of the two founders of VEOMO. The mobility topic has always moved me and that’s why I did a trip to get to know mobility concepts around the world. During my trip, I discovered lots of cities and different modes of mobility and priorities. Mobility is something that connects us and can be considered as a lifestyle nowadays. Before I established VEOMO, I worked for a large car manufacturer and realized that something has to change in the mobility sector.
What makes VEOMO special and what do you stand for?
At VEOMO we emphasize the comprehensibility of mobility information and improve existing solutions that are well known already. With this approach, we provide new information to the world. It requires more accessible information about alternatives to break out of our habits. We ourselves for example do not own a car and we are always on the hunt for new services and flexibility. We think that it needs information sources that are more easily accessible to integrate new mobility services into our daily routines faster and more efficiently. VEOMO provides new information to the world, which is useful to everyone.
When we started VEOMO, we wanted to improve the access to new mobility services by leveraging existing public mobility data. Our main motivation was to improve connection mobility / last mile mobility services to provide more sustainable alternatives to the use of private cars. This includes, for example e-scooters and car sharing offerings.
Although mobility data is still the core of our company, the product offering expanded. Besides the VEOMO mobility screens, we are also providing location analysis services, such as the VEOMO mobility assessment. We conduct our mobility concepts for project developers, cities and companies. That might sound complicated, but it’s not. Basically, we want our solutions and services to help others make our cities more livable and sustainable.
Since when does VEOMO exist and what are your biggest success stories of the past couple of years?
VEOMO was established at the end of 2018. Since then, much has happened. We created the largest multi modal mobility platform with more than 100 mobility services in the DACH region. Based on this, we created lots of different solutions which are used in many different industries (airports, exhibitions, cities, public transport). We consult project developers with data-based mobility concepts – which so far is unique in our industry.
At the start, we “only” wanted to improve the last mile mobility. Quickly, we realized that with our expertise in the mobility sector as well as our software platform, we can achieve more and eventually created our mobility consultancy.
Meanwhile, we were able to reduce more than 1,000 parking spaces for our customers and save more than 4,000 tons of CO2, 50 floors of basic structure of building and 120m€ of real estate volume. When I think back to the beginning, I realize that we just though “too small”.
Which role does VEOMO play and your solutions in the design of future mobility?
Since our establishment, we have been clearly realizing that a certain desire for change is growing in our society. Before we look too far ahead, let’s rather focus on the question “what can we change right here right now?”. During the development of our various software applications, we emphasize scalability and simple implementation. Our mobility screens can be delivered and deployed within three working days within Germany. For our location analysis it requires just a single mouse click and our mobility concepts will be realized within four weeks. Our biggest challenge remains to convince companies and municipalities that they can quite easily become the future mobility pioneers.
Many companies and cities regard this as something in the far future that they don’t have to deal with today without any direct benefits. Especially in the quite conservative real estate industry and in cities, many decision makers still do not dare to touch such future topics that they consider as risky. Our solutions are designed to break the habit and to proof that exactly the opposite is the case. Boldly summarized, we could say that our solutions are the enabler of future mobility.
Which role do parking garages play in this development?
Even if the future of privately owned cars doesn’t look too bright if you ask me, this doesn’t have to be the case for parking garages. We will always have to travel from point A to B, only much more multi modal. Parking garages will be an important piece in the evolution to a new form of mobility. While today it is mostly buildings where cars can be parked, I could imagine parking garages in the future becoming more like mobility hubs instead. Private cars, car sharing vehicles, e-scooters, shared bicycles and surely (with the further evolution of companies such as Volocompter and Lilium) also new forms of air-based mobility. Space is always needed, but it has to become more versatile. Furthermore, parking garages can be used for the charging of EVs and shuttles outside of peak hours.
From your perspective, how digital is parking already today? What needs to be improved?
The digitization of parking areas is one of the main challenges we are currently facing. Mainly due to the fact that the use of existing (urban) space needs to be optimized. We differentiate between public and private sectors. In private sectors, we see a much faster pace regarding digitization. The optimization of company parking lots is a huge trend. We still see promising potential in the optimization of parking spaces in residential buildings. Nonetheless, this remains a challenge. There are more and more municipalities that tackle the digitization of parking areas proactively. This is why we already recommend considering a proper parking management system in the design-and-built stage of new buildings.
Where do you see concrete opportunities and forms of cooperation between VEOMO and parking garage operators?
We draw attention to the use of parking spaces as mobility hubs. At P + R, we design the connecting mobility. We also recommend to our customers a system for using parking space efficiently and reducing the need for parking spaces.
According to your website, the focus of your mission are people. What do you mean by that, and which personalities or characters do you want to address and reach?
Exactly, that’s right. Cities are always people’s places in the end. Making cities more sustainable through future mobility always follows the aspiration of making the environment more livable. To achieve this, we are approaching primarily those who help shape cities the most. The cities themselves, the developers etc.
We humans have created our current mobility and we are responsible for how it evolves – this puts people with all their habits and feelings at the center. As a young company, it is difficult to convince every single person of a new mobility behavior. That’s why we specifically address companies and cities that have already recognized the added value of sustainable mobility and want to give their citizens and employees new mobility solutions and get the change in motion.