Interview with Swiss Business Hub Austria, Vienna
Switzerland is a textbook example of a country with a well-functioning public transport system. What role does the STL play in this?
A quite important one. The Swiss Transit Lab (STL) is an open platform via which industry, public transport operators, academies and the public sector cooperate and actively create solutions. In the STL, the mobility solutions of tomorrow are applied and developed today. New technologies can be developed and tested under real conditions and in mixed traffic – without bureaucracy and in an agile way. One example of this is a self-driving bus which serves a route that could not previously be covered. Thanks to these types of development, the STL has recently been awarded the Smart City Innovation Award.
Can foreign companies, e.g. from Austria, also participate in this platform?
Absolutely. In the STL, companies from all over the world can test their ideas for the mobility of tomorrow. Expanding Austrian companies can either combine their product or technology with the existing infrastructure (test track, vehicle, bus stops or industrial area) or create something new in the area of smart city. The STL and the Schaffhausen location already have further innovative project ideas, precisely in the areas of smart health, open data and traffic management.
How important is proximity to the world's leading Swiss research institutes for STL?
Proximity to leading universities is essential for the Schaffhausen location, as well as for the STL. And this also applies in the inverse sense; the STL is also indispensable as a real laboratory for innovative mobility solutions.
Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence or blockchain will play a significant role in the mobility of the future. How is Switzerland doing in this regard?
Switzerland is definitely playing a pioneering role. Thanks to the excellent university landscape and established initiatives such as the STL or, for example, the Trust Square in Zurich (the world's largest blockchain hub), with which Schaffhausen is cooperating in another application project, Switzerland is very well placed for research and development in these areas.
Christoph Schärrer is Delegate for Economic Development to the Canton of Schaffhausen (www.standort.sh.ch/kontakt).
Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) promotes export & investment on behalf of the Confederation and the cantons and helps clients realize new potential for their international business. We offer free advice and support throughout the entire settlement process: We connect you with the cantonal economic development agencies in an unbureaucratic way, and put you in touch with experts in the areas of taxes, real estate and much more.
Contact us:
Swiss Business Hub Austria
c/o Swiss Embassy
www.s-ge.com/invest
vie.sbhaustria@eda.admin.ch:
+43 1 795 05 00
