Process to support strategic decision-making: Transition to electromobility

Abstract

The shift to electromobility is an anticipated transition intended to combat the grand challenges of climate change and air pollution. This paper introduces a process designed to support strategic decision-making and policy-planning to facilitate such a transition. We demonstrate the process by a case study that explores electric vehicles as the solution to the vision of emission free transport in cities in 2050. The working process begins with scoping of the decision-making situation. For our case study we selected the policy target of phasing out conventionally fuelled passenger cars in urban transport by 2050, as stated in the White Paper on transport by the European Commission. Having further processed this vision that defines the desired future state, the socio-technical entity of the urban transport system in the Helsinki metropolitan area in Finland is analysed, and three alternative yet combinable paths towards the vision with suitable policy measures are mapped. One path focuses on public transport, and the other two investigate passenger cars powered by electricity or biofuels. In this paper we focus on presenting the vision path facilitating the shift from internal combustion engines to the electric drive. The process continues by buildup of a system dynamics model, and a series of simulations are run to study designed vision paths. The case study proved the developed process a success and ready to be applied in real-life decision-making situations.