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Verkehrszentrum

Photo: Deutsches Museum

Special exhibition

Rabbits&Rails

30 May to 15 July 2023

Exhibition on Public Transport as Public Space

Public Transport Spaces: The traveling exhibition "Rabbits & Rails" is currently making a stop at the Transport Center of the Deutsches Museum. Until mid-June, visitors can embark on an imaginative, interactive journey on the mezzanine of Hall III to explore the role of buses and trains as meeting places for people across Europe.

Photo: Deutsches Museum

Public transport encompasses buses, trams, trains, and other vehicles that travel from stop to stop, offering a convenient way to move from point A to point B. These services are essential for urban life and form a key part of the daily routines of millions of people. This includes dealing with timetables, navigating routes, waiting at stations, boarding and alighting, validating tickets, finding seats, and more. Public transit represents a vast and technologically advanced system that underpins the mobility of modern cities.

However, public transport is more than just a means of travel. Using public transport means sharing the space of vehicles and stations with others, leading to various interactions and encounters, whether pleasant or not. In this way, public transport can be viewed as a form of public space within the city, akin to squares or parks, used collectively by people. This perspective is the focus of the research project "Public Transport as Public Space in European Cities: Narrating, Experiencing, Contesting" (PUTSPACE).

Photo: Deutsches Museum

The question of what kind of public space public transport represents brought together researchers, transport enthusiasts and practitioners, as well as activists and artists in the PUTSPACE project. From 2019 to 2022, they explored how public transit, beyond its transportation functions, fosters social diversity, democracy, and urbanity. The project investigated historical and contemporary narratives about how people use public transport in various cities and examined the types of conflicts and challenges associated with it.

"Rabbits" is a nickname for a passenger traveling without a valid ticket.

Photo: Deutsches Museum

The traveling exhibition "Rabbits & Rails" now presents the results of this project. The exhibition explores how different publics (users and providers, passengers and staff) interact within public transport and examines the role of public transit in people's lives and cities. The findings of scientific research are creatively and artistically represented, with the design reflecting the visual language of public transport, featuring vibrant illustrations, engaging texts, and interactive, playful elements.

The exhibition was first shown in April 2022 at Les Halles Saint-Géry in Brussels, Belgium, and has since traveled across various European countries. In summer 2022, it was hosted by the Estonian Road Museum, where it was visited by around 15,000 people. In September 2022, "Rabbits & Rails" was displayed at the Geographical Museum in Padua, Italy, as part of the annual conference of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic, and Mobility (T²M). Currently, "Rabbits & Rails" is on display at the Transport Center of the Deutsches Museum, where it will be available for viewing on the mezzanine of Hall III until mid-June of this year.