Experts
Georg Schöpf
Managing Director, Cable Car Solutions GmbH
Georg is a qualified electrical engineer who holds a master´s degree in ropeway management and has worked in the roles of operations director and managing director for 17 years in various ski areas and urban ropeways. His focus is operations and maintenance, as well as control and safety systems. Georg’s know-how provides a valuable contribution to optimizing business management aspects and customer focus. As a safety professional, he has a wealth of knowledge in occupational health and safety. Georg speaks German and English.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
Dr. Thomas Baum
Managing Director, VSU GmbH Consulting engineers for traffic, urban planning, environmental protection
VSU GmbH has been employing urban ropeways for around five years. At that time, following a tender competition, we received the order to draw up a feasibility study for an urban cable car in Bonn. Together with partners from ropeway technology and traffic modeling, we were able to demonstrate the usefulness of the ropeway planning approach for this task. Our focus is the weighing of the planning issues in the specific individual case and the uncovering of the planning-critical facts.
With my doctorate in civil engineering and the diploma in spatial and environmental planning as well as practical planning experience in urban development, environmental impact assessment, in municipal traffic planning and traffic system planning, I combine the various subject areas that are necessary for the assessment of the planning tasks that arise. I presented the planning findings on urban cable cars in a summarizing article in the handbook of municipal transport planning in 2018.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
Juliane Gutgesell
Team leader industry innovation laboratories, House of Logistics & Mobility (HOLM) GmbH
The engineer has been in the mobility industry since the mid-2000s. Her areas of focus include railway technology and intelligent transport systems. Here she has always acted in an interdisciplinary manner and with a focus on the user interface, moderates between the different stakeholders and perspectives and is involved in the MINT junior field. At the HOLM, Juliane Gutgesell is the contact person for the industry innovation labs: the public transport lab, the first of its kind in Germany, was opened in 2019. This is where ideas, new concepts and business models for the public transport of the future are developed and tested. The ÖPNV-Lab acts across organizations and companies, is a trend platform, industry meeting point, source of inspiration and showroom for innovations. Current key themes are Mobility-as-a-Service, future road chains and innovative vehicle concepts. The lab pursues urban ropeway concepts in the Hessian area in close coordination with the FrankfurtRheinMain regional association, local public transport stakeholders and the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences as a scientific partner.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
​Dr. Georg Schober
Head of the test center / notified body for cable cars at TÃœV SÃœD Industrie Service GmbH
Georg Schober is head of the testing and notified body for cable cars at TÃœV SÃœD Industrie Service GmbH. As an expert for ropeways, he has been involved in a large number of urban ropeway projects in Latin America and Asia. The cable car experts from TÃœV SÃœD take on all legally required tests and certifications that are necessary for the placing on the market and the safe operation of the systems. These include, for example, the acceptance tests and recurring tests of cable cars and funiculars as well as safety analyzes and safety reports.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
Ruben Ebersold
Speaker, Yunex Traffic a Siemens Business
As a long-term part of the project management for the operation, maintenance and repair of the funicular that runs at the Squaire Metro at Frankfurt Airport, Ruben Ebersold is one of the experts at Yunex, who has valuable experience in the passenger operation of cable cars and their successful integration into urban areas.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
Prof. Dr. Jörg Niemann
Professor of industrial engineering at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. Jörg Niemann has been a professor at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences since 2012 for the teaching and research field of industrial engineering with a focus on production in the field of mechanical engineering and process engineering. Before that he was department head at ABB Automation GmbH and responsible for the development and sales of Life Cycle Services. Prof. Niemann is the executive director of the interdisciplinary research institute FMDauto and founder of the FLiX research center Life Cycle Excellence. Special focus areas are in the area of Life Cycle & Services Management as well as the evaluation and optimization of production systems using Lean Management methods.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
Daniel Mangold
Managing Director, Melzer & Hopfner Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH & Co.KG
Daniel Mangold enjoyed his training as an industrial engineer - with a focus on mechanical engineering - at the higher technical federal teaching and research institute in Bregenz (Austria) and graduated successfully in 2006. After 13 years of professional experience in the field of ropeway project planning and sales at a well-known ropeway manufacturer, Daniel Mangold and his partner Johannes Thißen MSc took over. the established cable car planning office Melzer & Hopfner in 2020.
Melzer & Hopfner Ingenieursgesellschaft mbH & Co.KG was founded in 1988 and is one of the leading specialist offices in the Alpine region when it comes to ski area planning and cable car planning. Internationally known destinations such as the Arlberg, the Skicircus Saalbach-Hinterglemm Leogang Fieberbrunn, Schladming, Flachau, Gastein but also the Feldberg in the Black Forest and many more are among the loyal customers.
Since its inception, the office has implemented around 300 cable car projects and created a large number of development concepts and feasibility studies.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
Janosch Neumann
Lawyer and partner in the law firm Heinemann & Partner Rechtsanwälte
As a lawyer and partner in the law firm Heinemann & Partner in Essen and lecturer in building planning and building regulation law at the German Real Estate Academy at the University of Freiburg, Janosch Neumann has specialized in environmental, planning and infrastructure law, among other things. Here he advises infrastructure companies and the public sector, for example on questions of specialist planning law for highways and power lines, including planning approval. As a pioneer in the legal world, Neumann dealt early and intensively with the law of planning and approval for urban cable cars and published specialist articles on this, e.g. "Urban cable cars as a subject of planning approval law - innovative infrastructure or urban planning dreams". He is also part of the team of experts that supports the Dress & Sommer planning office and the Stuttgart Institute of Transport Research in the preparation of the guide "Urban cable cars in public transport - guidelines for the implementation of cable cars in German cities as part of public transport" on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Transport.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
Stephan Salzmann
Managing Director, Salzmann Engineers ZT GmbH
As an engineering company, we at Salzmann Ingenieure specialize in planning and projecting cable car systems and have created over 380 plans and studies over the past 50 years. Since we work independently of manufacturers right from the start, we can guarantee the greatest possible system and manufacturer openness, which is particularly important for feasibility studies in the public sector.
Our planning know-how includes all common cable car systems and the associated infrastructure. To cover the interfaces to urban development, spatial planning, architecture and traffic engineering, we can build on a strong network of efficient engineering companies in Germany and Austria.
Cableways are becoming increasingly popular in urban areas. Based on our original work focus in the alpine area, we have therefore already dealt extensively with the topic of urban cable cars in the context of studies and preliminary projects.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
Christoph von Nell
Head of division, spiekermann ingenieure GmbH
As an engineering office, we have been involved in traffic planning for decades, with strategic concepts, specific needs analyses, economic considerations right through to the planning and implementation of infrastructure. My personal focus is on the analysis of which transport systems are the right ones at which point, the quantification of potential demand and the assessment of economic appropriateness as a pre-requisite for financing infrastructure projects in municipal public transport. Cable cars are being rediscovered in Germany and Europe as a supple-mentary part of the urban transport system. With my team, I accompanied the cable car planning in Wuppertal and Bonn with potential studies and standardized assessments, which are now the template for the current extension of the procedural instructions. We have worked out the requirements for federal and state subsidies in this way. In Bonn, for the first time in Germany, a real urban cable car could become a reality.
Day 1 & 2 | Mobility Lab
Sebastian Beck
Associate partner at Drees & Sommer SE
Sebastian Beck studied infrastructure management at the University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart. With the start of his practical study project in early 2008, he came to Drees & Sommer in Stuttgart. After holding various positions in the company, he took over responsibility for the Smart Infrastructure department at the Baden-Württemberg site in 2016. In July 2021, Sebastian Beck was appointed Associate Partner of Drees & Sommer SE.
Sebastian Beck is currently supporting various municipalities with challenges relating to sustainable mobility and urban cable cars and is project manager in the research project "Integration of urban cable cars in public transport" of the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport.