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PUBLISHED: 07. JANUARY 2023
CATEGORY: MOBILITY
Globalization and the associated urbanization, increasing social individualization trends and an urban transportation planning and policy in it`s infancy are increasingly favoring urban individual mobility and turning urban mobility trends, that were considered and predicted as science fiction only a few years ago, into reality.
What once sounded like science fiction is already part of everyday urban life. New technologies, changing user behavior, modern transportation infrastructure systems, advancing digitalization and the intelligent networking of entire cities and regions are increasingly revolutionizing urban individual mobility under the primacy of sustainability.
Modern urban agglomerations are rapidly changing their everyday transportation systems and promoting a predominantly sustainable and safe way of getting around for their residents. Innovative technologies and new business models promoted from the institutional side are already relieving conventional urban traffic and the formerly overcrowded inner-city transport system.
The following are the biggest trends in current and future urban mobility and urban individual mobility:
“Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact.”
(Autonomous) driving without a driver, both in public transport and in the context of urban individual mobility, will soon be more than realistic and will find its way into our everyday lives.
Advancing digitalization, the technological development of automotive manufacturers and research into smart assistance functions and their integration in modern cars are paving the way for autonomous driving.
In Shenzhen (China), the first cabs and buses are already driving autonomously. Every day, 11,000 passengers already use the autonomous electric bus operated by Shenzen Haylion. Like the unmanned RoboTaxis from AutoX, the electric buses driving autonomously through the city are controlled by a GPS receiver under the roof, among other things.
The potential of these new technologies, which will also be increasingly used in individual urban mobility in the future, is manifold. In addition to increased comfort and safety and a significant reduction in inner-city parking space, traffic jams will become a thing of the past.
Smart networking and real-time communication between vehicles and surrounding objects and traffic systems (e.g., traffic signs, traffic lights, smart devices, etc.) will make it possible to distribute and control traffic efficiently in the future, especially during rush hours.
Back to the Future” is already a reality. The first successful trial operations of air cabs are already being carried out in Singapore, Dallas, Los Angeles and Dubai before commercial operations start in 2023. Equipped with a pilot for legal reasons, air cabs will transport passengers on initial, defined routes in major cities by 2025.
From then on, autonomous flying with drone cabs will be available to the urban population as a new mode of transportation in parallel with public transport in order to relieve the high volume of traffic on the roads. In metropolises with more than ten million inhabitants, urban air traffic will soon be an alternative form of transportation and urban mobility.
The sustainable future of individual urban mobility clearly lies in e-mobility. Clean, green and electric is the credo of the metropolises. In the future, fuel-powered means of transport will be banned from city centers and replaced by electric cars, e-bikes, electric scooters, e-scooters, e-vehicles and e-mopeds.
In particular, the bicycle, especially the e-bike, is experiencing a boom and represents the future of individual urban mobility.
Not only high fuel prices, the enormous traffic volume or the search for parking spaces lead to the renaissance of the bicycle, but also the growing health awareness will play a decisive role in the context of urban mobility in the future. The body as the motor of future activity mobility is increasingly displacing conventional forms of locomotion from the urban landscape, which are massively subsidized by institutional and private entrepreneurs.
Through the expansion of public charging stations, some of which can be used free of charge, and through company offers of company bike leasing as well as government subsidies in this regard, the population that purchases an electric vehicle is rewarded or consciously led into electromobility. Countries such as Norway or the Netherlands are pioneers in this respect. Amsterdam, for example, will be free of fuel-powered forms of transportation by 2040.
In the future urban mobility world, “use instead of own” applies and marks the increasing individual mobility paradigm, which is no longer based on the private ownership of a mobility tool, but corresponds to the environmentally conscious and cost-sensitive drivers. The appeal of car sharing services is to a young, independent urban generation that demands flexible mobility on demand without having to make the long-term commitments associated with a privately owned vehicle. The uncomplicated use of apps from car sharing providers enables simple location and availability analysis and booking of vehicles. The vehicles are available to users where and when they are really needed.
Innovative technologies, advancing digitalization, and the increasingly changing user behavior of the urban population, which focuses on ecologically sustainable and health-conscious mobility, are already revolutionizing urban mobility today. In the future, the new urban mobility world will be increasingly characterized by efficiency, safety, flexibility and sustainable individual mobility, which will relieve the current urban traffic.
