Trufi’s Trip Planner App Takes a Detour Through Herrenberg, Germany

By car, carpool, taxi, bus, train, bike share, cargo bike, personal bike – no matter how someone gets around in Herrenberg, Germany, a one-of-a-kind journey planner app made by Trufi can help.

The app is one-of-a kind so far, that is. More on that below.

Called stadtnavi, meaning “city navigation,” the app is available for Android and IOS (as usual). Trufi also overhauled the pre-existing stadtnavi web app, improving upon the city’s legacy navigation platform.

Herrenberg is a small city, with about 32 thousand people, similar in population to Juneau, Alaska, or Ronda, Spain. But the app we built for Herrenberg can be scaled to a city of any size.

“One Click, All Modes” and More

Our app for Herrenberg offers a lot more than just routes and transportation modes:

Cargo bike rental, Bus locations and occupancy in real time, Herrenberg problem reporter, Public transport timetable data in real time, Parking spaces for people with disabilities, Taxi station, Road sensors, Bike share stations, Public toilets, Free parking space in the multi-story car park, city ​navigation app, Intermodal routing, Available parking spaces, Available motorhome parking spaces, Display of charging stations, Improved address search POI, Display of bicycle service stations, Call taxi, Ride-sharing offers
Current live functions on stadtnavi, the Herrenberg navigation system.
Screenshot: https://stadtnavi.de/?locale=en

stadtnavi is an intermodal mobility platform funded by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, part of an initiative to improve air quality in German cities. The app includes environmental aspects for route planning; it finds the fastest and most environmentally-friendly route.

Herrenberg is one of five German cities selected as a model municipality for the Project for Clean Air. Trufi Association won the competitive contract to overhaul the web app, and create the smartphone apps.

A Trufi App for a German City?

Trufi digitizes public transit, especially informal transit, for cities in the global south, such as Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Developing multimodal journey planner apps for developing world cities is what Trufi does.

So what’s an NGO like Trufi doing in a city like Herrenberg?

Herrenberg just after sunset
Herrenberg, Germany
Photo: Dirk (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Herrenberg had wanted to have a journey planner that could go beyond what most journey planner apps can do.

They wanted an an interface to OpenStreetMap, OpenTripPlanner, and open APIs for other data the app would access.

They wanted code that would be implemented as open source to enable further developments.

They wanted apps for both Android and IOS app stores.

All of those requirements are already built in to apps based on Trufi Core. More broadly, that’s just how Trufi works. Moreover Trufi had already built many of the features stadtnavi wanted for the new version of their app. Most importantly, stadtnavi wanted Intermodal routing – combining multiple modes of transport.

For example: Park your car in the Park and Ride parking lot, get on the S-Bahn, and finish the last kilometer with a bike share.

Public Transit Options
Public Transit Options
Bike Options
Bike Options
Sharing Options
Sharing Options
Other Options
Other Options

Future-Proofing Trufi Core for Other World Cities

The stadtnavi app for Herrenberg required Trufi to integrate features and transport services not typically found in cities in developing countries, such as bike sharing availability, or display of electric car charging stations. But that is changing rapidly.

Existing Trufi apps will be upgraded to integrate these features if these services exist, or when the services become relevant. Upcoming Trufi Core apps can launch with these services already active.

stadtnavi Web app
The stadtnavi web app showing multiple layers at once: bus positions, car parking, bicycle parking, ride-sharing points, and more.
Screenshot stadtnavi Web api: https://herrenberg.stadtnavi.de/?locale=en

Try stadtnavi – You don’t have to be in Herrenberg

The app can be tested from anywhere. You can pretend you’re in Herrenberg, and discover what intermodal routing can be.

Contact Trufi to support our work, or for more information >>

1 thought on “Trufi’s Trip Planner App Takes a Detour Through Herrenberg, Germany

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