BENTELER Mobility is introducing a turnkey, modular transit offering to the U.S. market this week. The offering combines ioki network-planning software, the 15-passenger HOLON autonomous shuttle and multi-year financing. BENTELER Mobility will present the package at booth 2708 at APTA TRANSform & EXPO in Chicago, October 4–7, 2026. The company says the offering is designed to help transit agencies improve service on constrained budgets, with automation applied where it makes operational and economic sense.
Highlights
- 15-passenger shuttle: The ADA-accessible HOLON shuttle includes automatic wheelchair harnessing that secures a rider without an operator.
- 200+ transit services: ioki’s platform has supported more than 200 transit services and served more than 10 million passengers in Europe, according to the company.
- Multi-year financing: Vehicles, the software platform and deployment support are spread across a multi-year term that can align with existing fleet replacement cycles.
- Live Chicago demo: A digital twin of the Chicago network, built for the show, lets booth visitors run a service change and see what it saves and who it affects.
What Does BENTELER Mobility’s Transit Offering Include?
The package draws on three units within BENTELER. ioki provides network analytics and a platform for managing fixed-route, on-demand and autonomous services. HOLON supplies the vehicle. BENTELER Mobility integrates the pieces and structures the financing.
Agencies can take the full offering or select individual elements that complement the capabilities and partners they already have. The company describes the system as agnostic by design. ioki operates any manufacturer’s fleet, and HOLON runs on any autonomous software, so agencies are not locked in.
ioki Digital Twin and Operations Platform
ioki’s digital twin and scenario-modeling tools let planners test route changes or new service concepts against actual ridership patterns and cost structures before implementation. Agencies can use the tools to find ways to deliver better service within a given budget, redesign routes, or identify new routes that can operate sustainably. According to the company, analysis that traditionally takes months of planning can be run across multiple scenarios in a fraction of that time.
Once agencies choose a service design, the ioki platform manages day-to-day execution. It runs fleet operations through one system and handles passenger interfaces across different forms of transit.
HOLON Autonomous Shuttle
HOLON contributes its purpose-built urban autonomous shuttle, which is ADA-accessible and carries 15 passengers. Automatic wheelchair harnessing secures a passenger without an operator doing it by hand.
Financing for Transit Agencies
BENTELER Mobility’s financing targets what the company identifies as a key barrier to deployment: high upfront investment. The cost of vehicles, the digital platform and deployment support is spread across a multi-year term. It is structured as predictable operating costs rather than a major upfront capital request.
The company says this lets agencies build fleets faster with the budgets already available to them. Costs can also be aligned with existing fleet replacement cycles instead of requiring a separate capital program.
One Point of Coordination From Planning to Operations
“Transit agencies are under growing pressure to protect service and improve performance despite constrained budgets,” said Tobias Liebelt, CEO of BENTELER Mobility. “We help them identify where change will make the biggest difference and bring together the right combination of service design, vehicles, software, infrastructure, operations and financing – built around their existing network, operating model and budget. With one point of coordination from planning through operations, agencies can reduce complexity, move beyond pilots and deliver reliable, financially sustainable service every day. The result is a start-to-finish mobility ecosystem.”
ioki Expands Into the U.S. Market
The launch coincides with ioki’s expansion into the United States through a new subsidiary and local team. Beyond its European service record, the company reports that ioki has analyzed and simulated billions of mobility patterns and citizen journeys to identify demand and efficiency potential in existing transit networks.
