’Urban Mobility’ is emerging as the backbone of the entire city ecosystem ensuring its growth and overall success. Today’s call for a greener planet and active ‘Climate Change’ combatting agenda inevitably encourages the need for smarter, greener, and safer urban mobility channels. The emerging smart cities today are increasingly integrating mobility solutions that are based on cleaner energy usage and shared resources with an elevated level of infrastructure integration among its inhabitants. None of this can be achieved without a substantial focus on the design, planning, and delivery of urban infrastructure that enables greater efficiency in urban mobility.
Also Read: Climate Change
What is smart urban mobility?
According to World Bank –‘Traditionally, urban mobility is about moving people from one location to another location within or between urban areas. Policymakers, urban and transport planners, and engineers spend huge amounts of time and money to improve urban mobility.
Indisputably urban mobility is a critical social element as it’s the gateway to access housing, jobs, and urban services in our daily lives. As cities continue to grow pollution and traffic congestion are two challenges thrust forth by the expanding urban mobility services.
Today urban development requires sustainable and efficient mobility options and services that are constantly evolving in line with society. Looking at ways to incorporate green energy sources for the vehicles as well as incorporating means to adopt more shared movements as opposed to individual drives form the overall outlook for the ‘smart urban mobility’ ways.
This can’t be executed without a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan. According to Eltis, a Europe-based observatory on urban mobility, a sustainable urban mobility plan is a strategic plan designed to satisfy the mobility needs of people and businesses in cities and their surroundings for a better quality of life. It builds on existing planning practices and takes due consideration of integration, participation, and evaluation principles.’
As urban mobility discussions unfold there is a common agreement that the existing urban mobility practices have to evolve and allow urban areas to be available more for their ‘people’ and not for their ‘cars’.
We are witnessing several emerging trends in this space. Let us discuss the key trends in this realm.
Electric Vehicles in the spotlight!
The most talked about one is the expansion of electric-powered vehicles to reduce the CO2 emission burden growing cities have been historically facing. E-Bikes, e-scooters, electric cars, and hybrids all are paving the way for sustainable urban transportation. A study titled “Mobility Futures” by the British market research company Kantar summarized that 51 percent of mobility in large cities worldwide is still done by car and estimated that by 2030, this figure is expected to be 46 percent – but then the characteristics of this space becoming increasingly cars that are shared, electric and autonomous.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is one of the oldest public transit systems in the United States. It’s also the largest transit system in Massachusetts. MBTA and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center have to reduce GHG emissions and convert their fleet to an all-electric fleet. The goal is to have full bus electrification by 2040. Table 1 shows the progression of electrification throughout the period between 2020 and 2040
As the e-inclusion expands in the urban mobility sector allied needs arise all of which continue to need the timely aid of geospatial tools to strengthen all such efforts.
As an example, the need to install thousands of EV chargers would be a necessary requisite for which mapping and location data are being tapped to plan and implement efficient infrastructure laying programs. One recent development in this arena is the development of a web-based site-suitability tool for EV charging stations called Charge4All using GIS in southern California.
This program was a partnership among design consultancy firm Arup, Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), and three leading energy utility companies. The Charge4All dashboard was created as a decision-support tool for elected officials, utility executives, and local communities—giving them color-coded maps with which to determine the most efficient—and equitable—locations for EV chargers in Southern California.
Two wheels becoming more popular
Watching urban mobility choices being taken up increasingly more by citizens’ experts expect an enormous leap in urban bicycle use owing to the availability of convenient e-bikes, bike sharing opportunities, and growing urban attention to improving city infrastructure with safe cycle paths and bicycle parking garages.
The Kantar study predicts that bicycle traffic in major cities worldwide will increase by 18 percent by 2030. Times are leaning towards making mobility fun as well as functional.
MaaS and MoD Solutions
An urban mobility trend with growing popularity is – Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Mobility on Demand (MoD). In this model, the chosen means of transport, whether sharing car, bicycle, public transport, autonomous shuttle bus, or e-scooter, no longer plays a role. Rather mobility becomes a service that is rented and paid for if desired also at a flat rate.
Because the expensive maintenance of one’s car is no longer necessary, and because sharing cars can recoup their costs 24 hours a day, global mobility costs can be greatly reduced with the application of ‘MaaS’.
The pandemic did put brakes on the spread of this shared model but as the world is getting back its stride – this is a trend that continues to attract much attention for technology providers as well the regulators.
Commingled Services
Planning and implementing well-integrated public transport services – ‘commingling services’ is another trend arising to improve urban mobility services. Commingling is defined as merging demand responsive transport (DRT) or paratransit with other mobility-on-demand services, such as microtransit, into one service.
An example of commingling services is being provided by Citibus in Lubbock, Texas. Citibus launched a new app-based microtransit service in 2020 which featured personalized shuttle services as a means of public transportation that works similar to ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft, except trips are commingled.
Another example is Brightline train service which operates from Miami (Florida) to Ft Lauderdale to West Palm Beach and eventually to Orlando. Here Train riders can also reserve a private ride, shared ride, or bikes hare (called BrightBike in the West Palm Beach area), or board a walk-up shuttle to/from a Brightline station and can also purchase a parking pass for any of the Brightline station parking facilities.
Autonomous Vehicles make inroads
Autonomous Vehicles integration grabs great attention in the discussion of smarter urban mobility applications. News releases are slowly indicating that autonomous vehicles seem to be approaching a point where they can be integrated with urban mobility safely and sustainably.
Autonomous vehicles are self-driving or driverless transportation devices that use sensors, GPS, etc., to navigate and ensure the safety of other traffic participants and this is yet another arena where location technologies and accurate mapping insights are much needed and well integrated.
Also Read: Autonomous vehicles & Self Driving Cars
One example of these projects is being run by the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) – an independent agency of the State of Florida is doing a project that has made a significant investment in automated transit through its Ultimate Urban Circulator Programme (U2C), which aims to transform downtown Jacksonville through modernization and expansion of its downtown circulator (Automated Skyway Express) to accommodate automated vehicles and to extend service to nearby neighborhoods.
Sustainable Mobility strategies
‘Less’ and ‘smarter’ are the keywords shaping the geospatial technologies aiding the urban mobility space as increasingly the ‘sustainability’ index is becoming the most important topic in the mobility of the future. Examples such as the Belgian city of Ghent show that citizens are ready to accept new, intelligent solutions.
The City of Ghent, Belgium, will soon implement a new dynamic traffic control system by mid-2022. The system will inform visitors in real time about the current parking situation, the occupancy rate of the various car parks, serious traffic disruptions, and much more. Almost 30 percent of its traffic now takes place on foot, and each family owns an average of 2.8 bicycles.
Maps to ease traffic woes
Traffic management and addressing road congestion is yet another essential element in all urban traffic-related considerations. Real-time data and emerging technologies to provide accurate data and maps to the regulators as well as the actual road users – the bus drivers, individual car owners, Uber drivers, and retail delivery drivers like the ones from Amazon – all of them in the absolute need of the day.
The strata of transport network users are varied and the outreach of mapping tools matches this varied spectrum of users. An example of the variety of road users is the inclusion of those who have disabilities and have difficulty accessing the transportation that matches their needs.
Providing a user-friendly option for pedestrians with disabilities to plan travel routes appropriate for them, the University of Washington’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology has developed AccessMap, a map-based app that lets users enter a destination and receive suggested routes based on customized settings, such as limiting uphill or downhill inclines.
AccessMap includes color-coded maps that enable users to see at a glance which streets would be most favorable for travel.
Concluding Remarks
Much attention is being meted out to the transport sector and we can refer to a recent announcement of multimillion-dollar support for one of the most integral components of all American’s life – the nation’s highway and transit systems on Wednesday, August 10th. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) together awarded $49.2 million in innovative technology grants to improve mobility and multimodal connections in this sector.
Also Read: US Awards $49.2Mn Grants for Innovations for the Nation’s Transport Systems
Intelligent geospatial technologies that provide accurate information for the tracking and tracing of vehicles and travelers are much sought after now. These geo-enabled technologies, along with scheduling software, can also facilitate alternative route management in case of emergencies and disasters and help those in authority in making efficient decisions.
In this regard, mobility data is of great importance as it unlocks the maximum value that can help cities become smarter.
Also Read: Importance of mobility data in making cities smarter
There’s no single solution that can solve all problems, rather it’s a combination of different solutions and technologies that can address the different problems that cities face to create integrated modes of mobility that are expected from users.
As location-based services evolve and become smarter, the geospatial analysis would certainly strengthen interactions with all road users. Hence mobility leaders are looking for a collaborative approach and continuing to strengthen their bonds with the geospatial industry!
