Achieving the climate goals depends to a large extent on the reorganization of the transport sector at all levels. The initiation of a paradigm shift in transport policies must be understood and take place primarily as a result of a change in structures. Besides the transport infrastructure, this also includes the financial and legal system. It is necessary to include the procedures and processes of transport policy decision-making in a comprehensive transition management. The implementation of specific national objectives in the respective administrative levels across the federal states to the municipalities would be a first necessary step. However, initiating necessary radical changes in the transport sector will require disruptive changes to the established structures. The paper discusses such changes in the transport system by introducing theories of sustainability transition and political economy. The role, dependencies and influence of actors in planning processes are prototypically analysed, drawing on the situation in Austria. We further examine how structural barriers suppress or delay measures supporting environmental sustainability. The limits of bottom-up and classic top-down processes are shown and their effectiveness as a contribution to the mobility transition is critically questioned.

The Vertical Urban Factory concept reclaims production in multi-story buildings as part of the cityscape. Today, factories are mostly located in monofunctional industrial areas outside of cities due to high land prices and restrictions on motorized individual transport. However, production must be taken into account as a necessary element of lively and mixed urban structures. New urban development concepts are therefore in demand for efficient and space-saving use of commercial and industrial space. We analyzed how multi-story production can be reintegrated into European cities and developed five prototypes considering urban structure and logistics concepts. The prototypes show that multi-story construction is indeed a realizable alternative for limited space resources. While integrating individual production facilities in densely built-up areas fulfils the current transport policy objectives best, the greatest potential of vertical production is located in mixed commercial areas. The vertical urban factory concept promotes sustainability goals on many levels and we therefore recommend it to cities. In this paper, we focus on the transportation aspects and present three of the five prototypes.

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