| |
|
11.12.2009
Mobility in the Year 2025
Mobility is part of our lives and our self-understanding. But how will transport and the people who use it change in future?
The Institut für Mobilitätsforschung (the BMW Institute for Mobility Research) develops extensive scenarios pertaining to our future mobility, rendering it a crucial mentor for industry and politics.
Current figures such as these are not only impressive, they can also be factors crucial to the decision-making process in politics, industry and research.
However, they do have one grave disadvantage. They merely reflect the status quo and give little evidence of what our road and air travel behaviour will look like in fifteen or twenty years from now. However, it is precisely this that is vital in order to be quick enough in developing the technology and infrastructure that is primed for the future. Consequently, the Munich-based Institut für Mobilitätsforschung (ifmo) has made it its business to solve the issues pertaining to mobility of the future.
In so doing, the ifmo fosters intensive collaborations with renowned scientists from Germany, Europe and other continents, thereby assigning research projects, organising workshops for experts and stimulating scientifically substantiated discussions. A board of trustees, comprising in addition to scientists representatives of the Deutsche Bahn AG, the Lufthansa AG, the MAN AG and the BMW AG for example, supports the institute’s work, thereby guaranteeing the highest possible degree of independence. Although the Institut für Mobilitätsforschung is an integral part of the BMW Group, it is of no importance whether the focus is on mobility at sea, on the road or in the air.
Mobility and modern life are closely connected
The work of the ifmo is not simply about statistics and predicting trends. It is the institute’s task to develop scenarios that demonstrate how social and ecological requirements and trends as well as basic economical conditions and technical innovations are related to each other. “Our aim is to contribute towards securing long-term, sustainable mobility under the given multifaceted and discerning framework conditions,” explains Hubert Schurkus, director of the institute. “After all, people’s working environments and lifestyles have changed drastically over recent years. The coherence between mobility and participation in social life is stronger than ever before. Both are closely linked with each other and will continue to be so in future.”
The most significant publications include current scenarios dealing with the “future of mobility” and studies comparing road, rail and airport infrastructure in seven European countries. Moreover, surveys have been carried out on the development of the traffic flow between Germany, its western neighbours and Eastern Europe.
 
We are becoming more mobile every day
How much will our mobility cost us in 15 years, or rather, what forms of mobility can we afford and do we wish to afford in view of increasing prices of fuel and public transport?
This is, for example, one of the central questions in the current ifmo study “Mobility 2025”. Based on the development of incomes, income distribution, mobility costs as well as future population and household composition, scientists have predicted just how “mobile” we wish to be or could be in future. The perhaps most important result obtained by the researchers is that in spite of rising prices we will be even more mobile in years to come than we are now.
And how will we make use of our mobility? Above all to cover distances that are increasingly greater than they are to today. For both professional and private reasons alike. The mobile phone, the internet and other communication technologies will, interestingly enough, be used even more as “mobility enhancers”. “Predominantly due to the fact that people can contact others via the internet and get to know them better, the desire to meet these people personally becomes stronger,” explains project manager Irene Feige. “Also, a trend towards a kind of “mobility hopping” is becoming apparent. A rising number of people “hop” between different means of transport and make use of an increasingly wider choice of travel alternatives – from local public transport, the railways and air travel to car rentals or special (usually electrically driven) urban forms of transport. The fact that the individual travel alternatives offer greatly varying degrees of comfort is becoming increasingly less important.” Optimising and harmonising differing kinds of mobility in order to obtain the smoothest possible “mobility chain” will become one of the most demanding challenges,” Feige adds. “In addition to an intensive cooperation between all partners involved, technical solutions for obtaining better coordination must also be found. The car will, however, certainly remain the major means of transport and continue to serve as an “interface” between other forms of transport.”
An increasing amount of goods traffic
Engineers and traffic planners alike will be faced with challenges of a totally different kind as a result of the increase in commercial traffic. In the study “East-West Goods Traffic 2030” the ifmo provides evidence, inter alia, that freight transportation between East and West Europe will almost double from the present 170 million tons to 330 million tons. Consequently, goods traffic will continue to rise dramatically on the road. However, in absolute terms, not only the volume of traffic in this area is on the increase. In addition, the amount of freight conveyed between East and West Europe by rail and by ship respectively will also almost double.
Studies available for download
For more than ten years now the Institut für Mobilitätsforschung has worked on predicting mobility in the near and distant future. During this period it has completed around 20 studies, from the future of hydrogen vehicles and the effects of political decisions, to virtual mobility and our recreational behaviour. Almost all publications are available for free download at: www.ifmo.de
|
|
|
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}