Connected transportation as the future of mobility
- By Katrine Rune and Tekla Komlóssy,
Sustainable design engineering master students
https://www.en.aau.dk/education/master/sustainable-design
Introduction
Nowadays the majority of the population — more than ever before — live in cities (Buchholz, no date). As the phenomena of urbanization and the number of cities are rising, the problems occurring with transportation are growing. These problems affect many aspects of sustainability such as human health, environmental pollution and economics. As part of the sustainability aspirations, the European Commission introduced a new action plan in the framework of the European Green Deal (European Commission, 2019), which among other things focus on transportation and aims for “a 90% reduction in [greenhouse gas] emissions by 2050” (European Commission, 2021).
The consultancy company Deloitte has as a response to this, created an alternative to how they think the future of transportation could be (Deloitte US, 2020). We will analyse their case, to explain the current regime and how this is an optimisation rather than a radical change. We will use the multi-level perspective as presented by Geels (2002) and strategic niche management (Schot & Geels, 2008) to explain and create our alternative on a more radical change to make the infrastructure more sustainable.
The future of transportation
Deloitte (2020) has a vision for the future of transport, that in many ways speaks into the current socio-technical regime. In their video (Deloitte US, 2020), they emphasise that our transportation must be convenient, fast, and cost-effective. At the same time, their focus is on transportation by car, similar to the current regime of transportation. The road systems are in many places created to make the traffic for cars run effectively and convenient. The same is the case in the video from Deloitte, cars are the focus in the narrative, both visually and audibly. The sustainability aspect comes, by introducing technology from niches with the paradigm of the traditional car. The future would be based more on the electrical and autonomous car (Deloitte, 2020), but it is just an addition to the already existing system, such as driver driven vehicles. This would create changes in the infrastructure, where the gas stations would have to be charging stations, but still leaving the structure of the road similar to the current system.
We already established that their primary focus is on technology leaving little space for the other levels in society. As a comment in their video, Deloitte mentions how to connect different types of transportation to fit our different behaviours and wishes. With(in) this comment, they briefly mention public transportation, walking, biking and using electrical scooters in combination with the car, including sharing of the different transportation technologies. However, the visuals mainly show a single person using the cars.
Our current socio-technical regime
Deloitte’s vision is built upon our current socio-technical regime which, according to Geels (2002) is the dominant and stable structure in our society. In research, made by Moradi and Vagnoni (2018), they divide the socio-technical regime of transportation into three (regimes?); “private car-based regime (automobility); public-transport regime including bus and urban rail (subway, trams), and non-motorized transport (walking and cycling).” (Moradi and Vagnoni, 2018, page 6) These three are, however, not equivalent, since automobility shaped transportation since the middle of the 20th century and aims at continuing to do so.
created by us, but based on (Geels 2002) and (Moradi and Vagnoni, 2018)
When using the multi-level perspective (Geels, 2002), the socio-technical landscape and niches must be analysed, to see how they affect and shape the socio-technical regime. Changes in the landscape can be a catalyser for radical change in the socio-technical regime, a good example of that is how the world is affected by the COVID-19 pandemic or the threats from climate changes. The niches can be used strategically to create a protected environment for developing new technologies, before using them to transform the sociotechnical regime (Schot and Geels, 2008).
Our alternative to the future transportation
The current COVID-19 situation resulted in “car buying ground to a halt, with sales plummeting 71 percent in China in February 2020, 47 percent in the US in April, and 80 percent in Europe also in April” (McKinsey & Company, 2020), since many people stayed at home or did very limited travelling. Many wonders what comes next, and when the ‘old order’ return? But what if we could create a ‘new order’ within transportation?
We suggest a systemic change of the transportation regime, where the infrastructure would be changed to create a more desirable and sustainable behaviour. The current regime prioritises cars and changes are mostly made to improve transportation by car. Instead of that, we believe the focus should be shifted to the use of alternatives. We acknowledge that there are different needs for transportation depending on whether people are living in the countryside, the suburbs or the inner city. There might be a bigger need for daily long-distance travelling in the countryside, while people in the cities might have their needs within a shorter distance. We want to create an alternative that reflects this and provides a convenient option for every situation.
Therefore, in our vision for the future, we suggest creating a network of different transportation options, which would include the improvement of public transport. We imagine that short and long-distance public transport could be even better connected, both physically and systematically. If public transport were more accessible and convenient, cars would not be needed even in the suburbs, while in the countryside there would be a need only to drive to the nearest public transport station.
In the inner city, we would take inspiration from cities such as Madrid and Oslo, which started to restrict cars from the city centres, creating pedestrian streets, parks, bicycle roads, etc. to replace wide car roads (Williams, 2019). Where people need to take only smaller distances, biking or walking could be a more convenient option in a greener city. As a network of public transport could be created, we also see a possibility to connect this with shared bike systems, which would allow people to have even better access to public transportation, such as buses, trams, or the metro. In the future new cities or areas of cities can be designed on a smaller scale, leaving less space for automobility, allowing only those cars and trucks which have an important function (e.g., police, ambulance, fire engine).
While transitioning to this desired future, we can restrict cars, which are used for private transportation in the cities. This would start to minimize the needs for roads, allowing to focus on pedestrians and bikers, creating safe and enjoyable infrastructure for them. To manage those trucks and cars which are delivering goods, packages etc., our idea is that they should be allowed in the city only within a specific period of time each day. Here we would suggest the least busy hours of the street for that period.
The technology niches from Deloitte’s vision (2020), could be used to encourage this transition. The electrical and autonomous cars could be used combined with other transportation options. The app explained in the vision from Deloitte (2020) finding the most convenient and fast transportation way could have an important role in our future vision as well, but the focus could be more on making other transportation options more desirable than private transport with cars.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if we want to create a radical transition and change transportation into being more sustainable, it is not enough to focus on the technology itself. We would have to look at the socio-technical landscape, understand the regime we are in and manage niches to create new practices in our community. Instead of focusing solely on the car, we should focus on the infrastructure. By shifting the focus to changing the infrastructure and make it less desirable to travel by car and more desirable to choose alternatives such as walking, biking, and using electrical scooters, we would be able to create a more sustainable future of mobility.
References
Buchholz, K. (no date) How has the world’s urban population changed from 1950 to today? Available at: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/global-continent-urban-population-urbanisation-percent/ (Accessed: 21 January 2021).
Deloitte US (2020) Introduction to the Future of Mobility. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFlITzqRBWY.
European Commission (2019) The European Green Deal. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1596443911913&uri=CELEX:52019DC0640#document2 (Accessed: 21 February 2021).
European Commission (2021) Sustainable transport. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/sustainable_en (Accessed: 21 February 2021).
Geels, F. W. (2002) ‘Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: A multi-level perspective and a case-study’, Research Policy, 31(8–9), pp. 1257–1274. doi: 10.1016/S0048–7333(02)00062–8.
McKinsey & Company (2020) How consumers’ behavior in car buying and mobility is changing amid COVID-19. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/how-consumers-behavior-in-car-buying-and-mobility-changes-amid-covid-19 (Accessed: 21 February 2021).
Moradi, A. and Vagnoni, E. (2018) ‘A multi-level perspective analysis of urban mobility system dynamics: What are the future transition pathways?’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 126(June 2018), pp. 231–243. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2017.09.002.
Schot, J. and Geels, F. W. (2008) ‘Strategic niche management and sustainable innovation journeys: Theory, findings, research agenda, and policy’, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 20(5), pp. 537–554. doi: 10.1080/09537320802292651.
Williams, L. (2019) What happens when a city bans cars from its streets?, BBC Future. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191011-what-happens-when-a-city-bans-car-from-its-streets (Accessed: 21 February 2021).