Opening of #IAA23: a “door to the future of mobility”

Munich, 05 September 2023

Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz today opened IAA Mobility in Munich. “It opens the door to the future of mobility,” said acatech President Thomas Weber shortly before the trade fair began. People are excited, he further said, but many are sceptical as well. So it’s important to try things out and engage in open debate. acatech is involved in the trade fair and is participating in the public debate being held in Munich’s Marienplatz plaza.

Just a few streets away from the acatech Forum, anybody interested can go along to the open-air IAA Public Space to have a look at and try out new mobility offerings.

Transformation of mobility – debate is needed

For acatech President Thomas Weber, the opportunity to see, try out and engage in debate are important elements of the IAA in Munich. The representative Mobility Monitor (published in January 2023) shows a high level of awareness. However, there is also a great deal of scepticism towards electric mobility. In a Spiegel interview (in German) shortly beforehand, Mr Weber advocated for collaboration on scaling up the market.

The interaction between space and mobility

The transformation of mobility is about more than just technologies. Where we live and how we get where we need to go in our daily and working lives affects mobility and thus also the volume of traffic. This is why acatech is campaigning for Integrated urban development and mobility planning (ISM) (in German) in the project of the same name.

A debate on the interactions between space and mobility took place in Munich’s Marienplatz plaza. Do we feel safe when out and about in the city? Questions such as this and more were raised in the “Citizen Lab”. How should cycle paths, lighting and accesses be designed to increase safety and people’s sense of security? Yulika Zebuhr brought interim results of the ISM project into the debate.

Presentation of the Mobility Data Space at the fair

The acatech initiative Mobility Data Space was presented at a stand shared by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy at the IAA in Messe München. The Mobility Data Space is a data sharing community for all those who wish to make mobility fair, safer as well as more environmentally friendly and more user friendly.