Cities in motion

To remain liveable and be fit for the future, cities must become sustainably mobile – this is one of the development goals of the United Nations’ Agenda 2030. “If you want to ensure a better quality of life and cleaner air in cities as quickly as possible, you have to be in favor of shared mobility,” says Professor José Viegas, a Portuguese transportation expert. Until 2017, he was head of the International Transport Forum, the transportation policy think tank of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The motto is renting and sharing, not possessing.

Transportation experts are in agreement here. “Traditional transportation behaviour is going to be changed by shared mobility offerings and easier switches between transportation modes,” says Claire Depré, Head of the Unit for Sustainable and Intelligent Transport at the Directorate General for Mobility and Transport of the European Commission in Brussels. Commuters will drive by automobile to the city limits, where they will change onto a train. Within the city, they will continue their journeys by urban railway or subway and then switch to a bus or rental bicycle for the last stretch to their places of work.

New digital mobility services will make it easier, more efficient and cheaper to get from A to B, as is happening in Helsinki, Finland, a pioneer in this area. Since 2016, people living in the Finnish capital have been able to use an app called Whim for intelligent travel planning across all transportation modes. Taxis, trains or car-sharing are booked and paid for through a common digital platform. What are known as Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) solutions, like Helsinki’s, are being trialed worldwide in cities that suffer from heavy traffic, such as London, Los Angeles and Singapore. The vision is one of less traffic but more mobility.

“Like digital networking, electromobility is creating possibilities that nobody can ignore,” Viegas says. This is because, in e-mobility, both startups and the R&D departments of major companies worldwide are surpassing themselves in coming up with innovations. Thanks to batteries that are longer-lasting and have a wider range, plus a well-developed network with smart charging stations, e- mobility is an important factor in cutting traffic-related greenhouse-gas emissions, if the electricity comes from renewable sources. Across the whole E.U., these gases that are harmful to the climate are set to be reduced by 80 percent by 2050, compared with 1990 levels. “This is why the Commission is driving the electrification of all transportation modes, on land and water and in the air,” says Depré, the E.U. transportation expert.

There is still room for improvement in the sales figures. In 2017, a total of 54,492 plug-in hybrid and electric automobiles were sold in Germany, the country with the fourth-highest number of sales in the world. The market leader, with 777,000 vehicles, was China, which had toppled the United States from top position in 2016. China is using a quota that obliges automobile manufacturers to make clean vehicles from 2019, as well as offering financial incentives for buyers to boost the 2.7 percent market share that e-automobiles already have.

Cities such as traffic-plagued Barcelona are already steering a course toward sustainable mobility. City and transportation planning are being thought through together. The city aims to create 300 kilometers of new bicycle paths, buses are to run more frequently and more stops are to be set up. However, the heart of the reform lies in what are known as superblocks – squares measuring about 400 meters by 400 meters, from which traffic will largely be excluded. Automobile drivers – with the exception of residents and delivery vehicles – will be diverted around the outside, freeing up the roads within the blocks for pedestrians and cyclists. Residents and passersby will receive a new space in which they can meet up and have a stroll.