The district of Cham sees its opportunity in fiber optics and is building a gigabit network for 18,000 buildings. This conviction is no coincidence: the region in Bavaria has been focusing on digitalization for a long time – including in public services.
Potatoes and digitalization don’t go together? They certainly do. The district of Cham wants to prove this and better connect regional agriculture with consumers. The aim is to create a digital platform that motivates farms, retailers, restaurants and consumers alike to offer or purchase more regional food. This has been well received, even in Berlin, some 500 kilometers away. The Federal Ministry of the Interior is supporting the three-year “Digitaler LandGenuss” project as part of the “Heimat 2.0” funding program – as a digital solution to safeguard public services.
Digital public services are one of the major trending topics when it comes to the challenges and opportunities for the future of rural areas. In the district of Cham, however, politicians and citizens have been dealing with the question of how the supply of electricity, water, public services or education can not only be maintained but also improved through technical innovations for much longer. “We’ve been going digital since 1996,” says Klaus Schedlbauer, who is also responsible for digital expansion as the district’s economic officer. “Back then, we networked the municipalities in the district” – via a joint intranet that connects district authorities, special-purpose associations and branch offices. This was followed by a municipal geodata infrastructure, an open data portal and comprehensive online services for citizens and the municipal economy.
Digitization as a spark for many projects
The district of Cham clearly illustrates where the challenges of rural areas lie – but also how they can be tackled and overcome as a municipality. With its 39 municipalities, the district is one of the five largest in Bavaria in terms of area. Some of the municipalities have fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, and it is often a long way to the larger towns of Roding (around 12,000 inhabitants) or the district town of Cham (17,000 inhabitants). How do people get from A to B? Where is the nearest general practitioner, where is the nearest specialist? Are there jobs and shopping facilities close to home? What are the prospects for younger people in terms of school and training? Anyone looking for answers to these questions today can no longer avoid the word “digital”. Those responsible and citizens in Cham drew up a digital mission statement for their district back in 2018. This included a separate chapter on services of general interest. And so “Digitaler LandGenuss” is one of many projects that have digitalization as a spark. For example, there are now three digital start-up centers in the district. “We have a lot of companies from the machining technology sector in our region,” says business promoter Schedlbauer. “They can test new production techniques in the centers, for example with the help of 3D printers.” And at the Cham Technology Campus, around 350 young people are studying and researching how artificial intelligence is changing industrial production in combination with mechatronics. In the spirit of public services – making education accessible to all – the start-up centers are not a closed event for business. “Citizens should also be able to use the labs and workshops,” Schedlbauer emphasizes. The district has therefore even planned workshops for interested people at the Technology Campus. Digitalization also plays a central role in the district’s schools. Roding primary and secondary school recently became the first in Bavaria to receive the Broadband Schools seal of approval from atene KOM Managing Director Tim Brauckmüller. The seal confirms that schools have a sustainable IT infrastructure and thus sets the first nationwide standard when it comes to the minimum technical requirements that schools need for a digital teaching strategy.
18,000 buildings to be connected to the fiber optic network
The district is currently building more than 1,900 kilometers of fiber optic lines for the schools, but also to keep the many mechatronics companies, automotive suppliers and mechanical engineering companies in the region and make it attractive for the approximately 130,000 residents. “We are creating a data highway for citizens and companies,” says Schedlbauer, who is also the head of the company’s own digital infrastructure, which was founded specifically for this purpose. In the end, around 18,000 buildings will be supplied with future-proof gigabit bandwidth. A tenth of the approximately 180 million euros being invested will come from the district and the municipalities themselves. The rest will be shared by the federal government (50 percent) and the state (40 percent). The highlight: the house connection – which can cost future users several thousand euros – is free of charge in the expansion project in Cham. “We know how important nationwide coverage is for the region,” explains Schedlbauer. The distances are long, and every journey to the office or workplace that citizens don’t have to make thanks to the best internet coverage is also good for sustainability. After all, mobility in a district as large as Cham is primarily achieved by car.
Mobility for all through autonomous driving?
Of course, Schedlbauer also knows that not every journey can be made virtually. In order to be able to offer alternatives to private cars and thus fulfill its responsibility in terms of public services, including mobility, the district is also relying on digital solutions. “You can’t achieve ten-minute intervals in the countryside like you can in big cities.” In order to improve services in addition to trains, buses and on-call buses, those responsible in the district are looking towards autonomous vehicles in the long term. “This is something where we believe that local public transport can be operated more cost-effectively and flexibly in rural areas in the future.” Perhaps the new technology for this will even come from the district itself: In any case, the company AVL is researching autonomous driving at its recently opened site in Roding. In rural areas in particular, such systems are an important building block for the mobility of the future, says the company, explaining its decision in favor of the district of Cham.