Taufkirchen – start of construction for Ottobahn delayed – district of Munich

The yellow-green bus stop sign is already there – but only in the form of a dummy hanging on the construction board. Behind it stretches a still untouched field on Ludwig-Bölkow-Allee on the outskirts of Taufkirchen. According to the original plans, a means of transport should already be doing its test rounds on the site there, from which the makers expect nothing less than a “revolution of mobility”.

What is meant is the Ottobahn from the company of the same name – a rail-based transport system with gondolas that will one day roar through the country at a height of several meters at up to 250 km/h, according to the plan. This technology is to be tested here in Taufkirchen, on a 900 meter long test track. All sorts of prominent politicians flocked to the groundbreaking ceremony in March, including the newly appointed Bavarian Minister of Transport, Christian Bernreiter (CSU). The representatives of Ottobahn GmbH announced at the time that the excavators should roll up on Ludwig-Bölkow-Allee in the middle of the year, so that unmanned gondolas could be sent on the first test rounds in winter.

Delivery bottlenecks are delaying the start of construction

We are still a long way from that today. No construction activity has taken place on the property near the municipal boundary to Ottobrunn. The main reason for the delay is delivery bottlenecks, according to a statement from the company. “Especially on the steel market, there is great volatility in terms of the goods we demand.” Despite the standstill on the property, Ottobahn GmbH, founded in 2019, continues to say that they have by no means been idle. “Individual scopes of vehicle production have been pushed forward”. In addition, the plans for the test track have been expanded, which, thanks to the cooperation with various partner companies, should now not only include the actual test track. Rather, the construction of an “Urban Mobility Campus” is planned in Taufkirchen, on which one wants to design “a showcase for the city of the future”.

In this “test laboratory”, for example, the possibilities of “vertical parking” are to be examined, i.e. the space-saving stacking of cars on top of each other using a paternoster. Furthermore, Ottobahn GmbH reports on partner companies that want to experiment there with new types of solar cells and digital advertising. In order to realize the Urban Mobility Campus, the Ismaning-based company Moto was brought on board as project manager. In the same function, for example, they coordinated the construction of the new center called Galileo on the Garching research campus.

With all these big plans, the question remains when will the construction work finally start? A spokesman for Ottobahn GmbH, named after the Bavarian Duke Otto I and the Autobahn, replies: The first work is to begin next spring. At the beginning, the necessary infrastructure will be built, such as access roads, water and power supply and sewers. “In the course of the first half of the year, the first visible trades should already be on display and perhaps the first exhibits from the Urban Mobility Campus should already be installed,” says the Ottobahn spokesman. The construction of the test track will follow; there is no exact date for this yet. Regarding the cost of the test track, which was estimated at five million euros at the groundbreaking ceremony in March, the company spokesman says: “Since the situation in the construction industry seems to be calming down a bit due to demand, we hope to be able to keep the estimated budget”.

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