WSM at the IAA Mobility 2021

This year, the International Motor Show (IAA) will be held in Munich for the first time. Recently declining visitor numbers and critical voices accusing the trade show of focusing on individual mobility that is predominantly harmful to the environment and outmoded have prompted the organizers to leave their traditional location in Frankfurt/Main and turn even more strongly than before to the topic of mobility of the future.

“What will move us next” is therefore the double-sided motto of this year’s “IAA Mobility”, which poses the question of both the means of transport and the moving motives for the change in social mobility – sustainable and geared to people’s needs, as the organizing German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) explains. At the “IAA Mobility Open Space”, world premieres from “leading car and bicycle manufacturers” will be on display and can be experienced for the first time in the middle of a major German city.

Automobility meets cycling

At the same time, the new IAA presents itself as the “largest bike event in Europe” and thus also targets the bicycle industry and cyclists, whom it has so far encountered at best with a safe distance. At the same time, the trade show responds to the increasingly popular desire for a general turnaround in transportation in Germany as a car country. The aim is to reduce the dominance of individual automobile traffic in favor of an environmentally compatible coexistence of all road users.

This includes better use of urban traffic and parking areas, which are increasingly also used by pedestrians and cyclists – the goal is a bicycle-friendly(r) traffic infrastructure with safe bike paths and lanes as well as sufficient and attractive parking facilities, whereby bicycles and e-bikes only take up about one tenth of a passenger car for parking.

VeloHUB: new diversity in bicycle parking

WSM is therefore participating in the IAA Mobility – another first. Together with the Danish strategic design agency Designit, we have developed a novel modular concept for urban bicycle parking that can use existing or newly designated spaces in a particularly diverse way.

Each VeloHUB offers bicycles a safe, covered and comfortable parking space. The basic module can be expanded in many ways. The roof areas can be used for social meeting spaces. Depending on the chosen design and the module used, recreational areas, areas for urban gardening or for micro-retail are created. Cyclists will find charging stations for e-bikes and pedelecs in the VeloHUB and can repair their companions on the spot with a repair kit.

Parking conversion initiative

With its VeloHUB initiative, Designit offers interested companies, municipalities and communities a free basic construction plan for the parking modules. The open-source approach is intended to make the VeloHUBs popular and thus advance the traffic turnaround in cities. The philosophy behind it: Communities, i.e. citizens at the locations, can persuade the administration to convert vehicle parking spaces and at the same time adapt the new VeloHUBs to locally existing needs.

Interested companies and communities receive a free basic blueprint from the initiative.

The curious can already get an idea of the innovative and versatile parking solution on the Designit website with an augmented reality application. The VeloHUB will then be presented live from September 7 to 12 at the WSM trade fair stand BL130 in the “Open Space” of the new IAA Mobility at Königsplatz in Munich.