Our Team
We get involved, think out of the box and team up with you to find out how we can make your company fit for the future. This results in sound recommendations for action and approaches to solutions.
Our team of dedicated scientific consultants covers a broad field of competencies for advising foundations, companies, associations, city administrations and politics. We model and conduct research. We answer questions and provide advice on topics such as climate protection, mobility of the future, economic change and transport and energy technology. The future of mobility is our core competence.
Scientific Director
Economist, PhD
Scientific Consultant
Sociologist, PhD
Scientific Researcher
Empirical Economist
Scientific Director
Economist, PhD
Wolfgang Schade, Dr. rer. Pol, has been scientific director, founder and managing director of M-Five GmbH Mobility, Futures, Innovation, Economics in Karlsruhe since May 2015. He has been visiting professor for European policy analysis at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, for the three academic years from 2015 to 2018.
Wolfgang Schade studied industrial engineering with a specialization in traffic engineering as well as urban development and regional planning at the University of Karlsruhe (now KIT), after which he completed his doctorate as an economist on the macroeconomic effects of European transport policy at the Institute for Economic Policy and Economic Research (IWW), also at KIT.
From 1997 to 2004 Wolfgang researched and lectured at KIT in the field of economic evaluation and sustainable transport policy. He worked on research projects in sustainable mobility on behalf of the OECD and the Federal Environment Agency (EST, Environmentally Sustainable Transport). In 2001 he was temporarily delegated to the European Commission, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) in Seville, as a national expert. There he was involved in technology foresight and employment studies for the target year 2020.
From 2008 to the beginning of 2015 Wolfgang was head of the business unit Transportation Systems at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (Fraunhofer ISI) in Karlsruhe, where he had already been researching as a scientist and project manager since 2005. He coordinated several projects on energy transformation in transport (e.g. TRIAS, iTREN-2030) and European climate policy in transport (e.g. GHG-TransPoRD) and was deeply involved in the development and evaluation of the EU climate strategy for the climate summit in Copenhagen (e.g. ADAM, MATISSE).
He focuses on transport policy, innovation systems of the different transport modes, qualitative and quantitative scenarios of future mobility and for climate protection, macroeconomic analyses as well as strategy consulting for policy makers and companies. In recent years he has managed and worked on numerous projects on these topics for national ministries, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the German Bundestag, as well as for companies and associations in the mobility sector. Since 2015, he has been one of the coordinators of the scientific support to the Federal Government’s Mobility and Fuel Strategy (MKS) and is responsible for the strategic and holistic analyses in the MKS consortium.
Main areas of work:
- Climate policy and transport
- Scenarios of future mobility and social development
- Innovation and technology diffusion
- Macroeconomic analyses
- New mobility services
- Transformation of the automotive industry
- Strategy analysis and consulting
Projects
Publications
Special Skills
Scientific Consultant
Sociologist, PhD
Christian Scherf (Dr. phil.) has been a scientific consultant at M-Five GmbH Mobility, Futures, Innovation, Economics in Karlsruhe since July 2018. He studied sociology and transportation at the Technical University of Berlin. From 2009 to 2018 Christian worked at the Innovation Centre for Mobility and Societal Change (InnoZ) in Berlin and at the Social Science Research Centre Berlin.
He researches and advises on the topics of new mobility offers, data analysis and social effects of transport. In his PhD thesis he examined the opportunities and challenges of joint offers between public transport and other mobility service providers using the example of smart cards.
Main areas of work:
- Integrated mobility services
- Data analyses
- Socio-economic effects of transport
Dr. Christian Scherf has extensive experience in working on multi-partner projects in mobility research. He is an expert in public transport and interactions with mobility services such as bike and car sharing.
Projects
Publications
Special Skills
Scientific Researcher
Empirical Economist
Dr. Arpita Khanna has been working as a scientific researcher at M-Five GmbH Mobility, Futures, Innovation, Economics in Karlsruhe since May 2023. She obtained her PhD from the University of Konstanz in 2017. She specializes in statistical and econometric modelling and has worked on a wide range of topics related to transport, energy, resources, environment, geopolitics, governance and macroeconomic growth and development. In 2015, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Oslo. She was previously affiliated with the Öko-Institute, the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), and The Energy & Resources institute (TERI).
Main areas of work:
- Socio-economic & environmental effects of transport policies
- ASTRA modelling
Projects
Special Skills
Team Assistent
Senior Scientist
IT Specialist
Data Analyst
Team Assistent
Tatjana Griffith has been with M-Five GmbH Mobility, Futures, Innovation, Economics in Karlsruhe since December 2019. Before she joined the team of M-Five, she worked as an administrative assistant to the head of internal services and in accounting at the Fraunhofer Institute ISI in Karlsruhe. She spent more than ten years in the United States where she gained interesting insights into the American business world.
Main areas of work:
- Travel arrangements
- Website management
- Purchasing
- Budget monitoring
- Event management
Special Skills
Senior Scientist
Christoph Walther graduated from the University of Ulm with a Diploma in Business Mathematics. With respect to his scientific work at the Institute for Economic Policy and Research, he received a PhD in Economics from the University of Karlsruhe (Prof. Rothengatter). After six years of work with Prognos AG, Basle (Switzerland), he joined PTV (Karlsruhe, Germany) as Transport Economist in 1998 where, as Head of Global Research and authorised officer, he headed the global “Transport Policy & Research” department until the beginning of 2024. Since then, he has been working as a Senior Scientist at M-FIVE GmbH Mobility, Futures, Innovation, Economics in Karlsruhe.
Christoph Walther has over 35 years of experience in the fields of transport planning, transport economics and transport policy. His activities as a scientific advisor are documented in more than eighty national and international research and consulting projects. His work focusses on the development of macroeconomic evaluation procedures for the improvement of transport systems, optimization of the use of transport infrastructure (maintenance planning, civil security of transport infrastructure, resilience, multi-modality) as well as on integrated transport and environmental planning. In 2011, Christoph Walther has been appointed honorary professor for “Transport Economics” after several years of teaching at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Bauhaus University Weimar.
Beside a remarkable list of publications, presentations, and lectures, Christoph Walther is active in different committees: he chaired the working groups “Areas of Application for Assessment Procedures” and “Dynamic Aspects of Investment Planning and Project Evaluation in the Transport Sector” (including the publication of the results as national guidelines) at the German Road and Transportation Research Association (FGSV). In 2014 he became member of the executive board of FGSV and finally, in 2020, shareholder of the FGSV publisher. Since 2019 he belongs to the board of editors of the “Zeitschrift für Verkehrswissenschaft” (German Journal for Transport Sciences) and in this context to the organizers of the (annual) national conference on transport economics and policy.
In 2016, he was appointed member of the Technical Committee “Road Transport System Economics and Social Development” of the World Road Association (PIARC) at the suggestion of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). For the past working cycle of PIARC (2019 – 2023) he took on the role of the scientific coordinator to this Technical Committee.
From 2010 to 2016 he was scientific coordinator for the processes of the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure in Berlin (BMVI). From summer 2015 until the end of 2023, he continued this work for BMDV as scientific consultant and coordinator for the national “Mobility and Fuel Strategy (MKS). As part of this mandate, he was scientific advicer to the working group “Climate Protection in the Transport Sector” of the “National Platform Future Mobility (NPM)”, focussing on railway strategies. Since 2023 he has been supporting the national “Expert Board on Climate Friendly Mobility (EKM)” with a similar range of tasks.
More than this, he was member of the core team “Research and Innovation” of the automotive industry’s strategic dialogue in Baden-Wuerttemberg, where he was chair of the working group “Societal Change” (2019 – 2022). This group worked on necessary social innovations for the mobility transition and initiated a publicly funded reserch network on this topic.
Projects
Publications
Special Skills
IT Specialist
Data Analyst
Julian Emmerich (M.Sc.) joined M-Five GmbH Mobility,Futures, Innovation, Economics as IT Specialist and Data Analyst in January 2020. At M-Five, Julian uses statistical and data science methods to analyze and process large amounts of (raw) data in the transportation sector. In addition, he manages several databases and, depending on the requirements, develops the Interface software for the appropriate use.
In the ASTRA model, among others, he deals with the implementation and evaluation of measures in the traffic-related modules, the generation of data science-generated inputs, and the calibration of the overall model. Julian also manages the IT infrastructure at M-Five and regularly implements new ideas for better and hybrid collaboration within the team.
Main areas of work:
- Data science, evaluation and visualization
- IT-Administration
- Database development
- Transport modeling
Projects
Publications
Special Skills
Scientific Consultant
Data Analyst
Scientific Consultant
Transport Modeller
Scientific Consultant
Transport Modeller
Scientific Consultant
Data Analyst
Ines Haug (M.Sc. Economics) has been working as a scientific consultant for M-Five GmbH Mobility, Futures, Innovation, Economics in Karlsruhe since May 2021. Previously, she completed her master’s degree in Economics at the University of Hohenheim with a focus on public economics and econometrics, as well as her bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Administration. During her studies, Ines already gained practical experience in the fields of climate policy, future transportation and data analysis.
Main areas of work:
- Transformation of the automotive industry
- Macroeconomic analyses
Projects
Publications
Special Skills
Scientific Consultant
Transport Modeller
Marcel Streif (M.Sc.) completed his bachelor’s degree in transportation systems management at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences from 2015 to 2019. Directly afterwards, he transferred to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology for his master’s degree. He successfully completed the Mobility and Infrastructure degree program in 2021 with a Master of Science. After internships at the city of Heidelberg in strategic traffic planning and a student trainee position at M-Five, he became part of the consulting team here in spring 2021.
In his studies, he placed particular emphasis on deepening his knowledge of traffic planning and modeling. He was also able to gain experience in this area in his two final theses. In his bachelor thesis he modeled traffic choice in Offenburg (discrete choice model). Later, in his master thesis, he was able to extend his experience by building a 4-step model for the city of Ettlingen.
Main areas of work:
- Transport planning / modelling and Mobility
- International rail transport (TEN-T, RFC)
- Geographic information system
- Data analysis
Marcel Streif has extensive experience with various topic-specific software. He also has insights and experience in various transport planning processes. He has a quick grasp and excels in systematic problem solving.
Projects
Publications
Special Skills
Scientific Consultant
Transport Modeller
Rafael Oehme (M.Sc. Traffic System Management) joined M-Five as a scientific consultant in November 2021. As part of his Bachelor in Business Administration in Transport and Logistics at the Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences, he spent a semester working as an intern for Daimler AG in the department Assembly control and shipping, where he was able to gain insights in supply chain management and first work experience.
While obtaining his Master’s degree in Traffic System Management he was a research assistant at the Institute for Resource Efficiency and Energy Strategies (IREES GmbH) in Karlsruhe. In his master’s thesis, which he wrote in cooperation with Fraunhofer ISI, he investigated the usage of e-scooters in the context of public transport in 2020/2021. During his studies and activities he gained experience in both freight and passenger transport. He was able to acquire further knowledge through various research projects on new mobility services and public transport and dealt with various topics of the energy transition.
Main areas of work:
- Sustainable mobility
- New mobility services
- Freight transport
- Public transportation
Rafael Oehme has extensive knowledge of freight and passenger transport as well as energy transition topics. Together with his curious character and quick comprehension, it is easy for him to become familiar with a wide variety of topics and programs.
Projects
Publications
Special Skills
Scientific Consultant
Legal Specialist
Scientific Consultant
Legal Specialist
Cornelia Emmerich LL.M. (LLS) is working at M-Five (staff #4) since October 2016 starting in April 2021 primarily as a legal expert. She studied law in the metropolitan area Erlangen Nuremberg where she finished her education (legal clerkship) with the 2. state examination. The focus was on international Private and European Law. Subsequently, she worked as a lawyer (partly also as a syndic at an SME) and in parallel completed a master at the Loyola Law School, Bologna in American and international (Trade-) Law.
Main areas of work:
- Monitoring of the (legal) implementation of mobility strategy measures
Cornelia is the expert for legal issues.