Strategies for the mobility of tomorrow

Without road planning at the municipal level, controlling traffic and transport and supplying towns and cities would have been impossible even back in antiquity. To meet the mobility needs of industrial society, roads and rail networks for horsecars and electric trains were built. After the Second World War, the vision of the car-centred city emerged – a vision that can still be seen in our cities today. Now is the time to develop new visions for our cities and implement them.

Today, local authorities are once again playing a key role in the mobility transition and in managing the measures adopted because they determine the rules on the ground to a large extent. They face the challenge of redistributing areas of public space and creating a complex infrastructure for connected mobility: Cycleways and parking spaces for electric scooters, cargo bikes and cars require space just as much as road users with limited mobility and shuttle and delivery services do.

Local authorities can’t manage this on their own – they must assume their role in an ethos of collaboration with businesses and service providers. And, in the context of funding or competency issues, they must also collaborate on the state or federal level. But above all, it is vital that they involve citizens in change processes from an early stage and provide them with detailed information.

This is precisely where an enormous opportunity lies: Innovations such as smart charging, intelligent street lights, smart traffic lights and parking and traffic control systems can be implemented locally – and they will decide whether people and vehicles move forward or remain stuck at a standstill.