acatech HORIZONS: Mobility

When people think of mobility, they think of cars, bicycles, buses or trains first. However, mobility is much more than just traffic. Mobility enables us to fulfill our everyday needs. It is the basic condition for participation in social life. Transportation is the concrete implementation, the answer to the question: how do I get from A to B?

We need to look at mobility holistically. How can we plan urban mobility without people in rural areas being left behind? What can we learn about modern urban planning from the bike capital Copenhagen? How can we shape the transformation of mobility leaving no one behind and as many people as possible benefit, while the environment benefits as well?

Over the past decades, human mobility and thus, primarily traffic, has continued to increase, at the expense of the environment. Today, it accounts for almost a quarter of the total greenhouse gas emissions. In order to reach the climate goals outlined by the Paris Accords, it is urgent that we reconsider mobility: modern, fair, sustainable.

New technologies give us the opportunity to do exactly this: digitalization, e-mobility, car-sharing and on-demand business models can be drivers for making mobility more efficient and reducing the burden on part of the environment.

All of these topics and many more will be addressed in this upcoming issue of HORIZONS. The aim is to highlight all aspects of mobility and thus contribute to a positive and creative social discourse on the transformation of mobility.