Interviewing Ingmar Streese (Germany)

BERLIN, one of our three pilot sites, puts emphasis on smart services for the newly developed residential ares of Waterkant (2,500 new apartments): on-street and off-street charging infrastructure, e-car sharing services and reserved sensor-based management of e-car parking.

Ingmar Streese, Permanent Secretary for Transport of the Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection (SenUVK) of Berlin explains further details of its role within the project.

What are the e-mobility strategies in the city (planned or in place)?

Meanwhile, the topic of E-Mobility has found its way into nearly every planning framework or strategy in Berlin regarding transport. Detailed or rather comprehensive descriptions can be found in the concepts of the ‘Action Program Electro Mobility 2020’ (eMo 2014) and in the ‘Masterplan for sustainable and emission free mobility of the state of Berlin’ (SenUVK 2018).

How is the city promoting and boosting e-mobility adoption?

With the ‘Berlin Model’ the city is establishing a wide pool – currently more than 250 and growing – of uniformly designed public charging station with non-discriminatory access for BEV/PHEV-users, as well as of course for third-party operators, which can function as charge point operators as long as they follow the rules and the regulation process. Every user can charge at every station and due to special use permits and signs it is possible to secure parking lots in front of charging stations. The City of Berlin aims to achieve the milestone of 600 charging stations in the year 2020 and furthermore to push forward e-mobility in public transportation and in (municipal) sharing-fleets.

How is the city going to benefit by means of its participation in MEISTER?

The participation in this project allows the City of Berlin to benefit from the knowledge exchange with other European cities. The joined development and testing of new charging technologies in a rather experimental setting enables the city to gather valuable insights and possible development and regulation patterns for the future roll-out of charging infrastructure. Especially the connected exchange on regulative measures with other cities might open up options for an alternative (more effective) rollout of public charging infrastructure. Furthermore, the city of Berlin will strengthen its cooperation with housing companies, electricity providers and research institutions within the field of e-mobility during the joint work in MEISTER.

What is the main interest of the city in the MEISTER project?

The City of Berlin is looking for new and innovative solutions regarding public charging infrastructure and how to cooperate with city-owned and private companies in this matter, as well as answer to the question: ‘What are the current (legal) barriers hindering the spread of profitable and frequented charging infrastructure and how can we overcome them?’.