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2019 Corporate Responsibility Report
On a new path
Anyone traveling in Bonn over the past few months may have seen Deutsche Telekom employees whizzing by on an e-scooter to meet customers. As part of a pilot project, a total of 50 electric scooters were made available to our employees in Bonn free of charge between September 2019 and March 2020. And they were put to good use – even by the Board of Management.
Digitally mobile
In the first three months alone, our employees have already covered some 10,000 kilometers with the Deutsche Telekom scooters. The scooters are returned to specific charging stations after each trip. That’s why Deutsche Telekom’s scooters are not strewn all over the city like some of the conventional rental systems. In the pilot project, we initially tested user acceptance and intensity of use. The e-scooters are one example of how we are focusing on alternative mobility concepts at our own company. Electric vehicles, our own bus shuttle or rental bikes have similarly been part of that for many years. We are also contributing to the sustainable mobility transition with our products and services. Mobility of the future should be low in pollutants an CO2. Digitalization plays a key role in this, since it is what makes many innovations possible in the first place: from apps for finding parking spots, car sharing or ride sharing services
, bike and e-scooter rental, and charging stations for electric vehicles to pioneering future concepts such as autonomous driving. Timotheus Höttges, Chairman of the Board of Management, Deutsche Telekom AG
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In ten minutes, electric cars can be charged for a range of around 100 kilometers at a Comfort Charge quick charging station.
Switching to alternatives
Some 100,000 electric cars were on German roads at the end of 2019. Given the more than 47 million registered cars, electromobility is still a small niche. For the technology to achieve a breakthrough, vehicle charging needs to become as easy as possible. That’s why we are building a network of charging stations with our company Comfort Charge. For this we are using our existing infrastructure: The rapid charging stations supply vehicle batteries with 100 kW and more power. That means that electric vehicles can charge for a new 100-kilometer range in seven to ten minutes. With more than a hundred locations, Comfort Charge currently has one of the largest networks of these rapid charging stations in Germany. “Get Charge” is our service for vehicle charging. It gives drivers access to almost 80,000 charging points in 29 countries (as of the end of 2019). Billing is based on kilowatt hours – with no basic monthly fee or minimum charge. An app displays the location of the nearest charging station.
JOY OF PARKING
There are many easy ways to fight climate change together in the Smart City. Using the Park and Joy app, which guides you to the next free parking space free of charge and saves 240 grams of CO2 with every search for a parking space, is one way. Learn more
Eliminating unnecessary trips
Whether it’s in an electric, hybrid or gasoline-powered vehicle, there’s one pet hate that all car drivers share: the tedious search for a parking spot in cities. On average, it takes ten minutes to find a parking spot in Germany! According to the “APCOA Parking” study, that makes up 30 percent of the total traffic volume. The Deutsche Telekom Park and Joy app solves the problem: It directs drivers to available parking spots. That’s good for stress levels – and the environment. At the end of 2019, Park and Joy was already in use in more than 90 German cities, helping drivers to quickly and reliably find and pay for a parking space.Thanks to autonomous vehicles, traffic could become safer and driving more relaxed. For people experiencing certain limitations it would become easier to be mobile.
From science fiction to reality
Self-driving cars – just a few years ago, that was still solely in the realm of science fiction films. In the meantime, the first semi-automated vehicles are already on our roads. And fully autonomous driving is not far off. What does that have to do with sustainable mobility? Autonomous vehicles could help make traffic safer and driving more relaxed. It would make it easier for people with physical limitations to be mobile. And the more efficient driving would protect the environment.
All this requires fast, secure and reliable communication networks. The vehicle requires constant data updates for navigation, such as detailed street maps. It also needs updates in the event of unexpected traffic situations, such as traffic jams, rain or black ice. Today’s LTE network is already well equipped for that, but the new 5G mobile standard offers even more possibilities. We plan to equip all major traffic routes such as highways, main roads and railways with the 5G network by 2025. An initial test track for autonomous driving has been set up in Berlin, and we are involved in the project.
40 000
At Deutsche Telekom in Germany, home office regulations were in place for almost 40,000 employees in 2019.
Just leave it at home
Thanks to technological progress, today’s cars emit less CO2 than just a few years ago. But these positive effects are canceled out by the steadily rising volume of traffic. The most important contribution to eco-friendly mobility is therefore to leave the car at home as often as possible. Every kilometer not driven saves CO2, particulates and nitrogen oxides. And digitalization helps to reduce traffic as video conferences, for example, can replace trips to business meetings. Carpools organized via app reduce traffic volume. And commuters with long routes to work are happy when they can work from home via the internet on one or more days of the week. Incidentally, in 2019, rules for working from home applied to almost 40,000 Deutsche Telekom employees in Germany.What our company is doing
With some 37,500 cars, Deutsche Telekom has one of the largest vehicle fleets in Germany. But the trend is downward – our fleet is shrinking by around 1,000 vehicles each year, since we have fewer maintenance issues thanks to modern technologies. In addition, we are using more efficient vehicles and increasingly turning to alternative drive systems powered by electricity or natural gas. These efforts have allowed us to reduce our fleet’s CO2 emissions by more than 40 percent since 2008. Our vision is to achieve sustainable and guaranteed mobility for all employees at the Group. One element in this is the intelligent networking of existing and new forms of mobility. For instance, we are working on combining company and public transport in the future on one digital platform for employees commuting between home and work (“Mobility as a Service”) . In addition, our “Green Car Policy” creates incentives for drivers of company cars to increasingly select smaller, more efficient cars. And we are making it possible for our employees to leave their cars at home as often as possible: for instance, with discount season tickets for local public transport or through our salary sacrifice bikes-for-work scheme .