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Are you interested in the future of urban mobility?

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Our summary today works with the article titled Urban mobility scenarios until the 2030s from 2021, by Márk Miskolczi, Dávid Földes, András Munkácsy, and Melinda Jászberényi, published in the Sustainability Cities and Society journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Andrew J. Cary in episode 354 talking about urban transportation and its effects on the urban environment.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what urban mobility scenarios can be projected from the current situations. This article presents 4 distinct scenarios based on 52 existing ones, leading towards self-driving, electric and shared vehicle use.

[intro music]

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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today we will introduce a research by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original investigation, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole documentation. This conversation was produced and generated with Notebook LM as two hosts dissecting the whole research.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever been stuck in traffic, just watching the minutes tick by and thought. There has to be a better way than this. Wondering if commuting will always feel like this,

Speaker 2: or maybe you’ve pictured a city where getting around is just easier, smoother, greener, maybe even a bit smarter.

Speaker 1: Exactly. If any of that sounds familiar, you’re definitely in the right place. Today we’re doing a deep dive into the future of urban mobility. We’ve got this incredible study to guide us. It pulls together findings from what, 62 scientific papers and 52 different future scenarios.

Speaker 2: That’s right. It’s a really comprehensive look. Think of it as our guide to what researchers are actually seeing on the horizon for cities specifically looking towards the 2030s.

Speaker 1: So our mission today is basically to unpack that. What are the most likely paths, what tech is really driving things,

Speaker 2: and crucially, what are the shifts in society? That are shaping how we’ll all get around. We wanna get past the hype and look at the data,

Speaker 1: and we’ll keep an eye out for those three big themes that keep coming up. Autonomous vehicles, AVs, electric vehicles, EVs, and shared mobility. They seem to be the real heavyweights here. Definitely. So let’s start with the basics. Why all this focus on urban mobility now? What are the big problems everyone’s trying to fix?

Speaker 2: What’s really striking? Maybe even a bit sobering. How the research consistently points to the same problems year after year.

Speaker 1: Still the same old issues,

Speaker 2: pretty much we’re talking longer, travel times, more time stuck, commuting, lower satisfaction for you, the traveller worsening environmental impacts, especially greenhouse gases and of course congestion that just never seems to go away. Plus, cities are growing. People expect different things now. It puts a huge strain on the systems we have.

Speaker 1: Okay, so it’s not just about being on aid in traffic. There are bigger consequences if we don’t figure this out.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. It’s about finding a balance. Right. I. Economic sustainability for the transport providers, meeting environmental rules, and ultimately just making travel better for people. Cities need to be liveable.

Speaker 1: Makes sense? So the problems are clear now. The study talks about those three pillars, the big tech innovations. Let’s get into those.

Speaker 2: First up is shared mobility. This one comes up again and again. As really promising for tackling those negative effects and actually making people happier with their options.

Speaker 1: So like car sharing, ride hailing, that sort of thing.

Speaker 2: Yeah, but even broader, think mobility as a service. Moz, the idea is you’d have one app that integrates everything. Public transport, bikes, scooters, ride hailing,

Speaker 1: making it seamless.

Speaker 2: Exactly. So seamless that maybe you don’t even feel the need to own a car. Of course, there are challenges there too, like. Data privacy, making sure everyone has access. It’s not simple

Speaker 1: policy hurdles. What about electrification? EVs are

Speaker 2: everywhere now it seems. They’re definitely a crucial piece. It’s about shifting to low or zero emission options, not just EVs, but also things like e-bike scooters, more cycling and walking. But interestingly, the research also flies some questions about the global sustainability of EVs. Things like battery production, the mining involved, what happens at end of life.

Speaker 1: So not quite a perfect silver bullet.

Speaker 2: Not entirely. It shits the environmental burden, you could say. Plus, you need the grid infrastructure, the charging stations. That’s a huge task for cities.

Speaker 1: Okay, good point. Now the one that gets everyone talking, autonomous vehicles. Avs, what do the studies really say about driverless cars? By the 2030s,

Speaker 2: avs are definitely seen as key to the whole smart city, smart mobility vision. The potential is huge, better traffic flow, much safer roads, theoretically

Speaker 1: fewer accidents.

Speaker 2: That’s the promise. Removing human error and more options for people who can’t try maybe the elderly or people with disabilities. Think on-demand. Mobility for everyone

Speaker 1: sounds great, but what’s the catch?

Speaker 2: The catch, or rather the reality check from the research is that full automation level five, where the court has everything everywhere, anytime, no driver needed, that’s generally seen as more likely for 2040, maybe even 2050. Not really the 2030s.

Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe temper the expectations a bit for the next decade. Widespread level five isn’t quite around the corner.

Speaker 2: Exactly. The rollout is likely to be much more gradual. Plus there are other massive hurdles.

Speaker 1: Like what? Beyond just the tech.

Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Huge societal questions. Job impacts, think taxi drivers, truck drivers, legal stuff. Who’s responsible in an accident? Insurance, the tricky stuff, and maybe the biggest one. Public acceptance. How do you feel about handing over control? Completely trusting the machine. Building that trust takes time and proven safety.

Speaker 1: Okay, so lots of moving parts, which brings us to the scenarios. The researchers didn’t just list the tech, they tried to weave it all together into possible futures, right? Four of them,

Speaker 2: yes. They distilled all those forecasts down into four distinct pathways, mostly based on how much automation and shared mobility take hold.

Speaker 1: What’s the first one?

Speaker 2: First is grumpy old transport sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

Speaker 1: Not really. What’s that look like

Speaker 2: basically today, but more so private cars are still king. Shared mobility is niche congestion, environmental problems, they all stick around, maybe get worse.

Speaker 1: So not much changes,

Speaker 2: not much fundamental change. No attitudes don’t shift. Policy doesn’t really push innovation hard. It’s the path of least resistance maybe, but still problematic.

Speaker 1: Okay. Grumpy. It is. Next at an easy pace. Sounds a bit better,

Speaker 2: a bit. It’s a slow, moderate transition. Private cars still dominate with more EVs on the road. Shared mobility grows, but slowly, that’s why. Yeah,

Speaker 1: automation

Speaker 2: spread slowly too. Maybe some advanced driver assist features, but not full self-driving everywhere. Traffic problems are still there, but maybe some cities try things like congestion zones or encourage more remote work to take the edge off.

Speaker 1: So incremental improvements. The mine is yours. That sounds like a bigger shift.

Speaker 2: It really is. This one imagines a future driven by the sharing economy. Shared mobility becomes the dominant way people get around.

Speaker 1: So less car ownership,

Speaker 2: much less think integrated. Public transport. Lots of bike and scooter sharing. Easy access to car sharing when you need it. EVs become common. Traditional cars. Decline

Speaker 1: and automation in this one,

Speaker 2: less focus on high level automation. Here it’s more about efficient, shared, often human driven or lower level automated transport. You’d see more walkable cities, maybe car-free zones. It’s a big shift in mindset access over ownership,

Speaker 1: a very different feel to the city. Okay, and the last one, tech Eager mobility. Sounds like the sci-fi version.

Speaker 2: It is, yeah. This is the most technology driven transformation. High levels of automation and shared mobility working together.

Speaker 1: So fleets of robot taxis

Speaker 2: potentially? Yes. Highly advanced EVs traffic flows smoothly because connected AVS optimize everything. Environmental issues are largely solved in transport. Public transport is still vital. But seamlessly integrated

Speaker 1: and less need for parking. You

Speaker 2: mentioned drastically less. Imagine reclaiming all that space for parks, housing, cafes. People might not even bother getting a driver’s license. Mobility is just summoned via your device. Effortless.

Speaker 1: Okay, four very different futures. Grumpy, easy pace, shared or tech eager. But the study actually picked the most likely ones for the 2030s, didn’t it? What’s the verdict?

Speaker 2: Yes. After looking at all the evidence, all those scenarios, the conclusion is that by 2030, the most probable pathways are either at an easy pace, the

Speaker 1: slow transition,

Speaker 2: or mine is yours,

Speaker 1: the sharing dominant one, so not the grumpy status quo necessarily. Also not the full tank Utopia.

Speaker 2: Exactly. That seems to be the key takeaway. We’re looking at an incremental advance. A gradual shift, not a sudden revolution by 2030.

Speaker 1: So more EVs maybe, or more shared options. Some driver assist, yeah. But not fully driverless cities just yet.

Speaker 2: That’s what the balance of evidence suggests. Mine is. Yours actually had the most scenarios backing it, about 35%. But at an easy pace was close pined at 29%,

Speaker 1: and the really high tech one

Speaker 2: tech eager mobility. Newer research is more optimistic about it, but it’s still not seen as the most likely for this next decade. There’s still a gap between the vision and the practicalities of implementation. Even grumpy old transport still represents nearly a fifth of the scenarios. Suggesting inertia is powerful.

Speaker 1: So it’s evolution, not revolution for the 2030s. A marathon, not a sprint.

Speaker 2: That’s a good way to put it. Infrastructure, cost, regulations, public attitudes. It all takes time to change.

Speaker 1: The big picture suggests a gradual shift towards smarter, cleaner transport, likely leaning towards either a slow adoption of tech or a bigger embrace of sharing, rather than a fully automated overhaul by 2030,

Speaker 2: which leads to a really interesting final thought for you listening. If the future isn’t just about waiting for some breakthrough technology, but more about how we choose to adopt things, about policy, about societal acceptance, what role do your own choices play?

Speaker 1: How you decide to get round, day to day. Does that actually nudge us towards one future or another? Something to think about on your next commute, maybe.

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What is the future for cities podcast?

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