MONOCAB OWL - Individual local passenger transport on rails

Nordlippe in East Westphalia is a sparsely populated rural region. Compared to metropolitan areas, local public transport services are limited. The Landeseisenbahn Lippe e. V. has developed an innovative idea to make people living there more mobile and less dependent on cars: A self-propelled cabin that runs on the rails of a largely unused railroad line according to the paternoster principle exactly when it is requested by travelers - called MONOCAB.

As individual as your own car

The MONOCAB is a monorail designed for use on the historic single-track railroad line between Lemgo and Extertal. Thanks to gyroscope technology (a fast-rotating gyroscope system for active position control by maintaining angular momentum), it balances on just one rail of a normal railroad track. Like a paternoster, it is in constant circulation and can be ordered individually "on demand". In the future, several cabins will be able to travel on one track in both directions at the same time, as the MONOCABs are designed to pass each other in opposite directions.

The MONOCAB should be as good as your own car and "made in NRW, tested in OWL". Thorsten Försterling from Landeseisenbahn Lippe e.V. says: "The future of mobility in rural areas is individual. A solution must be good and simple. It has to be intuitive and feel natural. Let's dare to think ahead!"

Experienced research and development partners are on board for this project: OWL University of Applied Sciences, Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and Fraunhofer IOSB-INA. And Landeseisenbahn Lippe e.V. as the initiator and source of ideas.