Current Approaches and Prospects of Urban and Suburban Mobility in Europe

Abstract

Mobility is a reflection of social challenges. Changes in society and its diverse lifeworlds are influencing people's everyday mobility behavior. Megatrends around digitalization, globalization, urbanization, and sustainability are increasingly influencing our environment and forcing new approaches and ways of thinking with regard to individual and collective mobility behavior. "Cities are growing nowadays and so is their citizens' demand for mobility." Cities are becoming food points and spaces where different interests meet. In addition to high standards of living and personal flexibility, these living and cultural spaces should also offer optimal accessibility and, last but not least, be designed to be sustainable and attractive. In view of the current need for a mobility transformation, in particular to reduce climate-hostile exhaust gases, special attention is being paid to current and future research in the mobility sector in the following five key topics: First: electric mobility using renewable energy; Second: "Mobility on Demand" and "Mobility as a Service" as the two decisive business models of the future with regard to CO2 reduction and logistics efficiency increase; Third: autonomous and automated driving; Fourth: creation and optimization of new charging infrastructure in urban and suburban areas and Fifth: contemporary and future-oriented urban mobility concepts to be subsumed under the term "Last Mile Logistic" with special consideration of commuter and small-scale cargo logistics. The special challenges in dealing with these research topics lie both in the high complexity of the subject matter and in the necessary interdisciplinarity with which the questions must be approached. Thus, only research teams will be able to produce resilient and robust results that are composed of specialists from the fields of logistics, computer science, energy management, lawyers, architects and urban planners, engineers, and programmers, and many more disciplines. The formation and organization of such research teams is the basis for successful mobility research and represents the real challenge of urban mobility change. Keywords: Urban and Suburban Mobility, Logistics, Sustainability, digitalization, globalization.