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PUBLISHED: 22. JANUARY 2023
CATEGORY: MOBILITY
Mobility, described by definition as the mobility of persons in geographic space, represents the epitome of freedom or individual and unrestricted mobility in space and time.
But how and, above all, with what will we get around in the future in the context of sustainability, especially in urban environments?
We are moving ever more spontaneously, faster, more individually and further. In the future, personal needs and mobility requirements will have to be reconciled all the more with the demands of the environment and nature.
In particular, the rapidly advancing global urbanization and the growing number of megacities pose a major challenge to sustainable mobility offerings in the future. According to the UN (United Nations), around two thirds of the world’s population will be living in large cities by 2050. This will not only change the social life of the population among themselves, but also to a large extent the individual requirements for sustainable mobility in the future.
While the urban population expects offers that make their daily mobility needs simple, efficient, flexible, fast, reliable and cost-effective, the municipal and local authorities are faced with the challenge of reducing traffic volume, space requirements and costs under the primacy of sustainable development in terms of noise and CO2 consumption.
Only those municipalities and cities that focus on the needs of their residents and offer them alternative mobility concepts with the help of technological innovations and the possibilities of advancing digitalization will be successful.
Numerous new technological developments as well as the rapidly advancing digitalization offer opportunities and possibilities how to meet the competing high demands of the individual interest groups (individuals, cities and municipalities, nature and ecology) in the future.
In the future, alternative drive, sharing, locomotion and transport options will be the focus of attention with regard to the successful implementation of sustainable (electric) mobility in urban areas.
Hybrid, electric, fuel cell drives, new e-mobility solutions, electric car, e-bikes & e-scooter sharing platforms, autonomous supply and locomotion options such as unmanned drone cabs, just to name a few.
The future of (electric) mobility or individual and sustainable mobility in the urban environment clearly lies in new, flexible, ecologically sustainable and technological mobility concepts.
However, the decisive factor for the successful implementation of these concepts will be the extent to which the technological and digital developments are oriented toward people’s needs and the extent to which they can be seamlessly integrated into the everyday lives of the population.
Whether future mobility will meet the demand for freedom or unrestricted mobility in space and time and will not stand in the way of individual (urban) mobility depends essentially on whether the offers are attractive and are used by people or whether the infrastructural framework conditions are created for this.
Cities that already offer their residents diverse, flexible and different types of urban mobility and are used by the residents due to their attractiveness include Dubai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Paris, Zurich, Stockholm or Amsterdam.
