40 years of innovation in public transport

Our pioneers look back

Long before the internet and time clocks, INIT staff working hours were recorded using the time recording system known as “Storgi”, a terminal where employees entered their working hours at the end of each month. Our INIT pioneer Christian Schucker recalls why butter pretzels and a "bum" played an important role in that process back then.

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It was quite exciting installing hardware and software on buses in the depths of winter for INIT’s first ever customer, especially when none of your colleagues had ever done it before. Our INIT pioneer Ulrich Serian, Lead Radio Engineer, looks back at those times.

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INIT wasn’t exactly set up in a garage 40 years ago, however many of the experiences during the early days are strongly reminiscent of the typical hands-on mentality of a startup, as INIT pioneer Wolfram Stahl recalls. He joined INIT over 30 years ago and is now one of our leading hardware developers.

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INIT began in 1983 with five employees. One of them was Achim Becker. So he can be considered something of a real INIT pioneer. At the start he was a student helper, and today he is one of the INIT GmbH managing directors. We asked him what it was like starting out, and if he could have imagined, back then, that he'd stay for 40 years.

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