There are hundreds of thousands of public transport stops in Germany - bus, tram and train stops. We have systematically gone through the public transport stops from the electronic timetable data (GTFS) and looked at which ones are not named after street names or squares, as is usually the case, but are named after retail names that can be accessed directly at these stops.
This can also be seen as mobility-related marketing. The name of the retailer appears in the timetable and potentially in the dynamic bus or tram display. With this research, we wanted to take a look at how widespread this presumably rather unmanaged and possibly unpaid marketing by retailers in cooperation with public transport is.
The GTFS feeds are the openly available electronic timetable data that is prepared and analysed for Germany by other service providers such as Dr Patrick Brosi's GTFS.de website. According to their website: "With over 20,000 lines, more than 500,000 stops (note: most stops have more than one stop) and almost 2 million regular journeys, this is one of the largest GTFS datasets in the world." We have searched this feed and thus the public transport timetables for the names of the major retail chains.
The result: around 300 stops across Germany are named after Rewe, OBI and Co. Kaufland is the most present: almost 70 stops have the Kaufland brand in their name. This is followed by Edeka, Aldi and Lidl, other retailers for everyday needs. Ikea is also in the top 5 for brand presence - despite the significantly lower number of shops. With 71 locations in Germany, there are 45 Ikea outlets.
All branded stops that we have identified are bus stops. In Magdeburg, the terminus of the Tram Line 1 is called "Ikea", but it is currently out of service.
The phenomenon is geographically widespread throughout Germany, although a certain immunity can be observed in Berlin-Brandenburg. In Brandenburg, there are only isolated occurrences (e.g. "Kaufland Eberswalde"). Some stops are named after the shopping centre they serve (e.g. "Stern Center" in Potsdam), but do not bear individual brands as names. In Berlin, we did not identify any stops with retail branding, not even at commercially characterised locations such as the Mercedes Arena in Friedrichshain or Kurfürstendamm. This is the result of a "protective" policy in the local transport contracts, according to one of the experts involved.
We did not detect any stops in the city of Frankfurt am Main either. This is also the result of a conscious decision: there is an internal city guideline for naming public transport stops, according to a local expert. Proper names of retail outlets, catering establishments or hotels should not appear, nor should the names of living people or private properties. Just 600 metres beyond the city limits, however, the situation looks different again: the bus stop "Kettelerstraße/Aldi" is located here in the district-free city of Offenbach am Main.
Anders ist es im Rest der Republik, wie die Karte unten zeigt; es lassen sich sonst über die gesamte Republik Beispiele für gebrandete Haltestellen finden. An manchen Orten finden sich vieler solcher Haltestellen trotz anderer Vorgaben. In the VBN network area, "short-lived names of e.g. retail shops or restaurants [...] are only to be chosen in exceptional cases." Dennoch gibt es hier ein Duzend solcher Haltestellen.
There are two small-scale types:
Local supply
Stops at local supply centres - mostly low-rise buildings with good parking facilities plus a stop with a brand name in medium-sized and large cities.
Green Field
The development of very large shopping centres or branches on the outskirts of our major cities and metropolises. The Ikea stop, for example, is one such location.
Branded stops therefore occur - but they hardly carry any weight in the total of 0.5 million stops. It is certainly possible to be critical of commercialisation in public life. But you could also say that bus stops are a place for advertising messages anyway. With bus stop branding, retailers can be offered additional location marketing - and at the same time the accessibility of these locations by public transport can be communicated. In this form of cooperation, local authorities and cities can thus promote alternative ways of reaching these locations (in addition to the still predominantly used private car, but also other sustainable forms of mobility such as walking and cycling) via public transport. And for customers travelling by public transport, such a designation is also a good orientation aid in case of doubt.
If we as a society want to advance the mobility transition, then we also need to tackle those building structures that were initially created primarily for the car - and preferably pragmatically, multi-modally and soon. Retailers and municipalities/cities can work together here. The car-centred approach of the wholesale market on the former greenfield site may no longer work so well in terms of accessibility if the mobility turnaround progresses in the coming years - a scenario that cannot be completely ruled out. Location-based retail should now prepare itself for the possible changes. A planning horizon of 5 to a maximum of 10 years does not seem to us to be completely out of the question until these changes will have a noticeable impact. It is therefore better to ensure more sustainable structures now.
The naming of the bus stops certainly doesn't generate millions, but a bus travelling through half the city with the destination "Ikea" does generate a few thousand visual contacts a day. It can be assumed that this is not based on a sponsorship agreement with the retailer. The mobility providers are therefore giving away revenue - on purpose, out of carelessness or out of convenience. As many of these locations have been built on greenfield sites, it can at least be assumed that the companies giving them their names have contributed to the infrastructure costs via development charges. Unfortunately, however, it can be assumed that there is no continuous co-financing of public transport operations beyond this.
The aim should be for a bus to stop directly in front of the Ikea entrance and not at the end of the car park. It should be easier to set up (and, if necessary, name) a bus stop at a retail location than to asphalt a large area of a car park. At the moment, it's the other way round. And that the retail trade, as the beneficiary of this infrastructure, has the obligation to co-finance the development by public transport, also in operation, and at the same time has the right to express stronger wishes with regard to routing and frequency. After all, this ultimately creates a win-win-win situation that also benefits the customers/citizens.
Catchment