Societal Trends Influencing Mobility and Logistics in Europe: A Comprehensive Analysis

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to establish a comprehensive view of societal trends that have an impact on mobility and logistics in the future. We have reviewed scientific literature, the output of European research projects and reports from consultancies. The result of this investigation provides a broad and comprehensive set of factors that influence, and will influence in the future, mobility and logistics. The set is composed of 29 trends organised under 9 larger categories covering economic issues, societal issues, urbanisation, the environment, the digital society, new business models, safety, security and the legislative framework. This work has been strongly inspired by the ideas of the liquid modernity developed by Bauman. This broad and complete view on societal trends has proved to be very supportive of the present analysis. It allows describing linkages between social and economic trends, and between society and technology, especially information and communication technology. Building the analysis on liquid modernity provides coherence and exhaustiveness in covering the topic. The added value of this contribution is its systematic approach and that evidence is provided for each identified trend.

Human Behavior and New Mobility Trends in the United States, Europe, and China

“…"Connecting to the social network, either physically or telecommunication based, seems to have replaced the car ownership dream observed in previous generations." "The possession of a car tends to be replaced by the idea of connecting to the social network" (Chalkia, De La Cruz, Keseru, L'Hostis, & Muller, 2018).…”

“…Despite already having high levels of urbanization in Europe, they are expected to increase from 73% in 2014 to 84% in 2050 (Chalkia et al, 2018). In 2015, 28% of the EU-28 population was living in rural areas, whereas 31.6% were living in towns or suburbs, and the biggest share of the population (40.4%) lives in cities.…”