How to address a trend that is overarching and embraces many distinct addressees and disciplines such as Smart Mobility? What is happening behind the scenes? Often labeled as Intelligent Mobility, Mobility-as-a-Service or Mobility 4.0, and understood as autonomous driving or intermodal traffic management, Smart Mobility has many faces and focus areas depending on local contexts and needs. Decision makers in cities, rural areas and federal institutions now have the opportunity to prepare the ground so that everyone and everybody benefits. Smart Mobility, therefore, should be seen as a visionary and feasible offering that influences our present and our future -regardless of our budgets, capabilities, competences, and needs, regardless of where the demand is being generated and where it is being fulfilled.
1Mobility is all about freedom. Regardless of whether we are considering a person or an object, a group of people or a demand fulfilment process, mobility is all about being maneuverable in one or multiple geographies. How to make it real in the digital age is all about connectivity, taking chances, and transforming constraints into opportunities. The essential elements are all there.Throughout numerous initiatives about intelligently connected cities -also referred to as smart cities or new cities -mobility has found a terminological home as one of the six design elements of a Smart City [1, p. 9]. The other five elements are Smart Governance, Smart People, Smart Living, Smart Economy, and Smart Environment. The fast-paced rise of mega cities make research and project undertakings focus on the design, feasibility, and challenges of urbanizations with 10 million or more inhabitants.
B. FlüggeIt is nevertheless fascinating to devote design efforts to those urban settlements and reach new heights of digitally fostered architectural and planning excellence. However, existing and over-decades evolving small and medium-sized cities, large cities, and metropolitan regions as well as rural areas must not be neglected. No more than technological advancements, those aspects that foster the move into cities, such as medical care, employment, and shelter, should not be neglected.Fostered through trend topics such as car sharing, eMobility and autonomous driving, the increasing scarcity of resources in relation to partly aged, outdated, and maintenance-demanding infrastructure in developed countries raises the question of who can rely on receiving a mobility offering at all.Social allies that share communalities such as interest, a certain geography or travel targets count rather on the use of one vehicle and not the ownership. The shared economy is predicted to grow by 3000 %. Hence, who are the ones that going to share and what is being shared? Consequently, each of us turns into a service provider that is getting active in known and unknown territories. If we are not doing it, others will. Moreover, if we are not steering it, we get steered and our assets will be controlled by others.Technological achievements and ...
