Mobility of the Future, Smart Cities and Sustainable World are three topics in a comprehensive single context. Sucessful Mitgation of climate change doesn´t work without a strategy, which combined energy und transport transition, resource efficiency, infrastructure and digitization. And the most suitable level for implementation relating to transport issues are smart cities and smart regions, in some case smart nations like singapore.
And that for several reasons: In 2050 two out of three people worldwide and four out five people in Europe will live in urban areas. Cities and urban areas today occupy 2 % of earth surface, but consume 80% of global energy supply and produce 75% of global carbon emissions. That´s why we should focus on Mobility of the future and Smart Cities to achive a sustainable world.
Please find the extensive, detailled PP-Presentation „Future mobility, smart cities, sustainable world“ at the end of this article. It starts automatically.
Cover Picture / Visualisation: Nickolay Lamm
Mobility of the Future, Smart Cities and Sustainable World: 100 cities in the world drive 18% of global emissions and in most countries, the top three urban areas drive more than one-quarter of national emissions. In this connection Transport is one of the most challenging issues. Not only in Germany transport is the only sector which emits more carbon dioxide than other sectors compared to 1990 data.
In some bigger cities, transport is the highest consumer of energy, for example in Mexico City, Hongkong and Cape Town. „In large cities of countries, whose economies are growing at a slower pace, the transport sector consumes more than half of the total energy used.“
Cities and regions as the most important habitats for people today and in the future are threatend by climate change: Across Europe summers and winters will get warmer (summers plus 3,5° C and winters plus 4,7° C in average). „Climate change will be equivalent to city shifting 1000 km further southwards – 20 km/year – Thomas W Crowhter and his team shows (Understanding climate change from a global analysis of city analogues).
Smart Cities and Mobility as a Service (Maas)
But how can we mitigate the climate impact of transport? A powerful short-term measure is the concept of mobility as a service (Maas), which could be a helpful tool for smart cities and smart regions approaches. „The idea of smart cities is rooted in the creation and connection of human capital, social capital an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in order to generate greater and more sustainable economic development and a better quality of life,“ argues Rudolf Giffinger and his team (City-ranking of European Medium-sized Cities).
Mobility as a Service „combines different transport modes to offer a tailored mobility package, similar to a monthly mobile phone contract and includes other complementary services, such as trip planning, reservation, and payments, through a single interface (Hietanen, 2014). This bundling of mobility modes presents a shift away from the existing ownership-based transport system toward an access-based one. It offers users a tailored hyper-convenient mobility solution, with a promising perspective to substitute private car“, (Peraphan Jittrapirom et al., Mobility as a Service: A Critical Review of Definitions, Assessments of Schemes, and Key Challenges).
Mobility as a service can help to reduce private car ownership for example, which today is based nearly without exception on cars with combustion engines. These cars, primarily diesel engines, endanger health and pollute the environment with different gases (CO2, NOx) and particulate matter. For further informations take a look on „Diesel und kein Ende“ on this website.
Mobility as a Service in context of Mobility of the Future, Smart Cities and Sustainable World is primarliy based on the smart combination of endowments and activities of self-decisive, independent and aware citizens. MaaS is build on six characteristics: Smart Economy, Smart People, Smart Governance, Smart Mobility, Smart Environment and Smart Living.
MaaS: Mobility inside
The are lot of exmaples, how to construct and implement mobility as a service, and there are a lot of examples worldwide. In Germany „Mobility inside“ will transfer MaaS-Projects from a local or regional on a nationwide level. „Mobility inside is the only app our clients will need to buy every ticket for their journey. Regardless of whether the use local, long distance odr bike sharing services“, stresses Prof Knut Ringat, Managing Director and speaker of the board of Rhein-Main Verkehrsverbund (RMV).
Smart cities and regions and Mobility as a Service as well need to be decarbonized. Decarbonization means a tremendous increase for green electricity (Renewables) – for zero emission transport sector and for digitzation as well. But these enourmous demand have been barely acknowledged to date. We need also a more powerful infrastructure for energy and data management.
For example: If only 10% of all cars registered in the US are driving full autonomous, they will generate roundabout 38 Zettabyte per day. The amount of the global data center traffic today is 11 Zettabyte.
Warnings and Recommendations
In last decades a large variety of scientific studies and warnings has been published – long before Greta Thunberg went on strike and initiate Fridays for Future and Scientists for Future movement. All these studies and warning has been widely ignored by politicans and most journalists. It´s time to recall what all this scientists like John Tyndall, Gilbert Plass and Henry Kendall to Sir Nicolas Stern, the Team of IPCC reports, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber and Johan Rockström has carried out – and there are hundreds, maybe thousands of scientists more, who are still working on this topic – again: widely ignored by those, who awarded a contract to explore climate change, above all the german government.
This is a very, very small list of very interesting reports and warnings (from a german perspective):
Union of concerned Scientists: Warning to humanitiy (1992) – Download
Union of concerned Scientists: Warning to humanity – A second notice (2017) – Download
Alliance of World Scientists – Website
German Advisory Council on Global Change: World in Translation, A social Contract for Sustainability (2011) – Download
German Advisory Council on Global Change: Kassensturz für den Weltklimavertrag – Der Budgetansatz (2009) – Download
German Advisory Council on Global Change: Humanity on the move – Unlocking the transformative Power of Cities (2016) – Download
German Advisory Council on Global Change: Development and justice through transformation – The four big I´s (2016) – Download
German Advisory Council on Global Change: Climate Protection as a World Citizens Movement (2014) – Download
Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen: Umsteuern erforderlich – Klimaschutz im Verkehrssektor (2017) – Download
Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen: Demokratisch regieren in ökologischen Grenzen – Zur Legitimation von Umweltpolitik (2019) – Download
Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen: Umweltgutachten 2012 – Verantwortung in einer begrenzten Wel (2012) – Download
UNDP: Pursuing the 1,5° C Limit – Benefits and Opportunities (2016) – Download
Concluding remarks
„A carbon-based global economy is an untenable situation … The transformation to climate compatibility is as much a moral imperative as the abolition of slavery and the outlawing of child labour.“
German Advisory Council on Global Change, World in Transition, A social Contract for Sustainability
„The injustice here is that the Philippines is a minor emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) with only 0,3% of global emissions, but it is among the most vulnerable to climate change impacts. Ketsana or Ondoy in 2009, Haiyan or Yolanda (very powerful and destructive typhoons, JS ) in 2013 are just a few examples.“
Loren Legarda
Mobility as a Service is a powerful, short-term solution for of a smart mobility in smart cities and regions and a suitable and available tool to fight against climate change.
Mobility of the Future in a nutshell
Mobility of the future is …
- to make it possible to satisfy the needs of thegreatestpossiblenumber of customers,
- using minimal energy and resources, in a way that is
- climate neutral, or even better emission-free,
- so that a connected,seamless, reliable,client oriented and reasonably priced transportation is ensured,
- the earth’s ecosystem is not harmed further, and
- the effects of climate change are reduced
- causing a tremendeous increase of data flows
- subsequently increasing the demand for “green” (renewable) electricity for zero emission transport (Mobility and Logistics) and DataCenter
- offers an unparalled service in mobility (Mobility as a Service) to reduce private car ownership and environmental impacts
Smart Cities / Smart Regions can reduce…
- transport performance
- energy consumption
- environmental impact
- private car ownership
- land usage
- Smart Cities / Smart Regions can enhance…
- quality of life –less traffic, noise and less air pollution
- quality of Mobility Services
See the presentation (117 slides) …
