Efficient transportation and mobility are essential to make a city competitive
and appealing. Current business models offer alternative and new mobility
solutions, such as car or bicycle sharing and new leasing mobility offerings,
electric vehicles, autonomous driving, talking cars, micro mobility
or integrated mobility.
What future impact have key global mega trends on Urban Mobility?
What are the major challenges in balancing economic needs and environmental
policies?
What role can innovation play or what innovation is needed?
.Planning
and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility
Dr.
Joan Clos, Executive Director UN-Habitat
Planning
and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility - Global Report on Human
Settlements 2013
is released at a time when the challenges of urban transportation
demands are greater than ever. This is particularly the case in
developing countries where populations (and the number of motorized
vehicles) are growing at rates where urban infrastructure investments
are unable to keep pace. I believe this report will serve as a
starting point to guide local authorities and other stakeholders
to address the challenges faced by urban transportation systems
all over the world. The report provides some thought-provoking
insights on how to build the cities of the future in such a manner
that the ultimate goal of urban transport namely enhanced
access to destinations, activities, services and goods
takes precedence over ever-increasing calls for increased urban
mobility. [...]
The report also provides recommendations on how national, provincial
and local governments and other stakeholders can develop more
sustainable urban futures through improved planning and design
of urban transport systems. [...]
The report also notes that most trips involve a combination of
several modes of transport. Thus, modal integration is stressed
as a major component of any urban mobility strategy. For example,
the construction of a high-capacity public transport system needs
to be integrated with other forms of public transport, as well
as with other modes. Such integration with various feeder
services is crucial to ensure that metros, light rail and
bus rapid transit (BRT) systems can fully utilize their potential
as a high-capacity public transport modes. It is therefore
essential that planners take into account how users (or goods)
travel the last (or first) mile of any trip. By way
of an example, it is not much use to live within walking
distance of a metro (or BRT) station, if this implies crossing
a busy eightlane highway without a pedestrian crossing, or if
one is unable to walk to the station (due to disability, or lack
of personal security). Likewise,it is unlikely that urban residents
will make use of metros (and BRTs), if the nearest station is
located beyond walking distance, and there is no public transport
feeder services providing access to these stations
or no secure parking options for private vehicles near the stations.
The System is the Solution in Urban Transportation
To fully address urban mobility challenges city managers must
go beyond the building of transport infrastructure and look at
the interconnectivity of the different modes if they are to be
successful, says the United Nations Human Settlements Programme,
UN-Habitat.
The Global Report on Human Settlements 2013 - Planning and
Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility, calls for a systematic
approach, taking into consideration how people move from road
to rail, from bus to metro, from bicycle to tram and so on, if
they are to gain and keep users.
"The introduction of high-capacity public transport systems
can potentially improve the efficiency of the urban economy by
reducing travel cost and time; it can increase the level of city-centre
activity, thereby enhancing agglomeration economies which are
crucial for the prosperity of urban areas," says UN Under-Secretary-General
and UN-Habitat Executive Director, Dr Joan Clos. "But the
most efficient and comprehensive train network in the world will
have very little impact if people find there is no way to complete
their journey when they alight from the station. The system as
a whole is the solution to urban mobility, not one individual
piece of infrastructure."
Globally, a trend has begun in this direction. Systems are being
installed in places as varied as Bangalore, Brasilia, Cairo and
Shanghai. The shift in focus is due to the awareness that the
collective cost of reliance on the car is making cities unsustainable.
Everyone, including those who can afford private cars, are struggling
with urban sprawl, air and noise pollution, congested roads, increasing
traffic accidents and social segregation. High-capacity public
transport systems are increasingly seen as a sustainable alternative
and are now being installed in various cities around the world.
The report warns of the danger of seeing an individual piece of
infrastructure as the panacea to all its urban mobility challenges.
In Nairobi, for example, a commuter train was opened in 2012 to
ease the congestion of cars but uptake has been slow. One reason
for this is that to access the outlying stations you still need
a car. The private ownership of the bus system means that there
is little incentive to provide a route whereby commuters can access
the railway.
The
world's largest or most used metro systems are Tokyo (Japan),
Seoul (South Korea) and Beijing (China). Passengers daily: Tokyo
- 8.5 million; Seoul - 6.9 million; Beijing 6.7 million
Metro
The metro is generally an underground system capable of at least
20,000 passengers per hour, per direction. Globally, it carries
an average 112 million passengers per day, the report says. Asian
cities account for 46 per cent of global ridership, followed by
European cities with 34 per cent. Although it is the most expensive
public transport system to build, it offers clear advantages in
terms of speed, low noise, low emissions of greenhouse gases and
other air pollutants, high reliability and public safety. One
major drawback, however, is the long distances between stations,
necessary for trains to reach high speeds. Another is limited
flexibility and the need for bus or intermediate public transport.
Light Rail
Electric light rail transport is a mode that can be developed
in stages to increase capacity and speed. Such systems mostly
operate at the surface level with overhead electrical connectors,
and exclusive right-of-way lanes. Ridership is significantly lower
than that of metros. Light rail may have high or low platform
loading and multi or single car trains. They have traffic priority
at road junctions, which increases their speed and service reliability.
Some 400 light rail and tram systems are operational worldwide.
These systems, though, are relatively costly and are mostly be
found in relatively high-income cities.
Bus rapid transit (BRT)
In terms of cost, the BRT capital costs can be 4 to 20 times less
than light rail systems; and 10 to 100 less than those of the
metro with similar capacity and service levels, according to the
report. BRT runs along exclusive right-of-way road lanes at the
surface. In dense city centres, underpasses or tunnels at intersections
separate it from other traffic. BRTs provide high quality, fast,
safe, comfortable, reliable and cost-effective services for the
26 million daily commuters in 156 cities worldwide. A good BRT
system is flexible and it combines stations, bus services, busways
and information technology in an integrated manner.
Connecting people to the system
In addition to the physical integration of urban mobility modes
and service providers, operational and fare integration are essential
aspects of an integrated and sustainable urban mobility systems.
Public transport route schedules and fares have to be coordinated
to facilitate the travel of individual passengers. Thus the report
notes that public transport systems have to address four major
parameters: affordability, availability, accessibility and acceptability.
In the final analysis, it is the ease with which the public can
access these high-capacity transport facilities that will determine
if they will be used. That is why transit-oriented development
is vital; urban developments that are physically organized around
public transport stations. It is done by considering the entire
public transport system as a whole, looking at how the different
modes intersect and how people will join the system at the beginning
and end of their journeys. It is the effectiveness of how the
bus, train or tram lines work together with safe pedestrian walk-ways,
car parks, bicycle lanes and with each other that will determine
whether they can pull people away from their private motor vehicles.
Understanding
the parameters of urban transport
Affordability refers to the extent to which the financial
cost of journeys puts an individual or household in the position
of having to make sacrifices to travel, or to the extent to which
they can afford to travel when they want to.
Availability of trans port is used to refer to route possibilities,
timings and frequency.
Accessibility describes the ease with which all categories
of passenger can use public transport. For example, buses with
high steps are difficult to board, particularly if they are one
person operated and there is no assistance. Accessibility also
includes ease of finding out about travel possibilities, i.e.
the information function.
Acceptability is another important quality of public transport,
either because of the trans port or the standards of the traveller.
For example, travellers may be deterred from using public trans
port due to lack of personal security on buses and trains.
[...]
Conclusions
Politicians, government
institutions and planning processes need to emphasize accessibility
over mobility.
Cities need to
be more compact, encourage mixed land use, and prioritize sustainable
modes of mobility such as non-motorized transport, in order
to develop sustainable mobility systems.
Urban mobility
systems need to provide mobility opportunities for all.
Improved urban
planning will be critical in designing and retrofitting cities
to better accommodate sustainable modes.
Policies to encourage
sustainable urban mobility must take into account social, environmental,
economic and institutional dimensions of sustainability. This
calls for more holistic and inclusive framework for the planning,
design and provision of urban mobility systems
and services.
Thursday, January 30, 2013, 18:30
- 21:15
Location: Info.nl- Sint Antoniesbreestraat 16,
1011 HB Amsterdam [Next to Nieuwmarkt]
Tickets: Euro 30, Euro 20 (Members etc.) or Euro 10 (Students)
Ticket
Corner
This
event is supported by Info.nl & TPEX (TelePresence
EXchange International)
The speakers
and topics are
Wim
Korver,
Head of Research & Development Unit, Goudappel Coffeng The 21 century: the end of the car mobility as we know it
Robert Dingemanse,
Co-founder and CEO, PAL-V Flying cars, how will it affect future mobility?
Nick Cohn,
Senior Business Developer, TomTom TomTom on Urban Mobility: The Future is Now
Rohit
Talwar,
CEO, Fast Future Research Global Forces Shaping Urban Mobility
"Envision an ideal place to live or run a business, a friendly,
safe and secure community with large areas of open space and extensive
entertainment and recreational facilities. Finally, picture this
community continually moving around the world. You are beginning
to understand the Freedom Ship concept of a massive ocean-going
vessel. With a design length of 4,500 feet, a width of 750 feet,
and a height of 350 feet, Freedom Ship would be more than 4 times
longer than the Queen Mary. The design concepts include a mobile
modern city featuring luxurious living, an extensive duty-free
international shopping mall, and a full 1.7 million square foot
floor set aside for various companies to showcase their products.
Freedom Ship would
not be a cruise ship, it is proposed to be a unique place to live,
work, retire, vacation, or visit. The proposed voyage would continuously
circle the globe, covering most of the world's coastal regions.
Its large fleet of commuter aircraft and hydrofoils would ferry
residents and visitors to and from shore. The airport on the ship's
top deck would serve private and small commercial aircraft (up
to about 40 passengers each). The proposed vessel's superstructure,
rising twenty-five stories above its broad main deck, would house
residential space, a library, schools, and a first-class hospital
in addition to retail and wholesale shops, banks, hotels, restaurants,
entertainment facilities, casinos, offices, warehouses, and light
manufacturing and assembly enterprises. Finally, this concept
would include a wide array of recreational and athletic facilities,
worthy of a world-class resort, making Freedom Ship a veritable
'Community on the Sea'."
Discovery Channel - Freedom Ship - Engineering The Impossible
.Car
research
Ford Reveals
Automated Fusion Hybrid that can almost drive itself
The Ford Fusion
Hybrid automated vehicle represents a vital step toward our vision
for the future of mobility, said Ford Executive Chairman
Bill Ford. We see a future of connected cars that communicate
with each other and the world around them to make driving safer,
ease traffic congestion and sustain the environment. By doing
this, Ford is set to have an even greater impact in our next 100
years than we did in our first 100.
Mercedes-Benz driverless research car
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche: "For us, autonomous vehicles
are an important step on the way to accident-free driving. They
will bring greater comfort and safety for all road users. That's
because autonomous vehicles also react when the driver is inattentive
or fails to spot something."
Volvo Autonomous driving
Autonomous vehicles are an integrated part of Volvo
Cars as well as the Swedish governments vision of
zero traffic fatalities. This public pilot represents an important
step towards this goal, said Håkan Samuelsson, President
and CEO of the Volvo Car Group. It will give us an insight
into the technological challenges at the same time as we get valuable
feedback from real customers driving on public roads.
microMAX - the networked swarm car
With microMAX
Frank M. Rinderknecht, boss of Swiss creative
powerhouse Rinspeed, transfers the idea of swarm intelligence
to urban traffic and sets out to do nothing less than to revolutionize
it.
Connected Car from AT&T Innovation
US carrier AT&T has opened an innovation
centre in Atlanta designed to be a launch pad for new ideas and
companies with a focus on the digital life and connected car sectors.
The background context of this project is to apply the water
recycling technology developed by Orbital Systems AB into a
product, in this case a shower. It is the most advanced and
efficient shower unit, saving up to over 90% water and 80% energy,
whilst increasing comfort and hygiene.
A study of smart textiles in fashion and clothing. A report within
the Baltic Fashion Project, published by the Swedish School of
Textiles, University of Borås.
Textiles of today are materials with applications in almost all
our activities, we wear clothes all the time and we are surrounded
with textiles in almost all our environments. The integration
of multifunctional values in such a common material has become
a special area of interest in recent years. Fibres yarns, fabric
and other structures with added-value functionality have been
developed for a range of applications [Lam Po Tang, Stylos]. Textile
materials and techniques have become an important platform for
high-tech innovations.
This report aims to provide an overview of projects combining
smart textiles and clothing as a basis for further discussions
on how smart textiles could be introduced in fashion.
After decades of unchecked sprawl, more
people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living
has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource
crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness?
Are subways, sidewalks and tower dwelling an improvement on the
car-dependence of sprawl?
The award-winning
journalist Charles Montgomery finds answers to such questions
at the intersection between urban design and the emerging science
of happiness, during an exhilarating journey through some of the
worlds most dynamic cities. He meets the visionary mayor
who introduced a sexy lipstick-red bus to ease status
anxiety in Bogotá; the architect who brought the lessons
of medieval Tuscan hill towns to modern-day New York City; the
activist who turned Pariss urban freeways into beaches;
and an army of American suburbanites who have transformed their
lives by hacking the design of their streets and neighbourhoods.
Rich with history
and new insights from psychology, neuroscience and Montgomerys
own urban experiments, Happy City is an essential tool for understanding
and improving our own communities. The message is as surprising
as it is hopeful: by retrofitting our cities for happiness, we
can tackle the urgent challenges of our age. The happy city, the
green city, and the low-carbon city are the same place, and we
can all help build it.
.2013
Argentina Digital Future in Focus
comScore presents
the 2013 Argentina Digital Future in Focus, its report
on prevailing trends in changing digital behavior, online video
and mobile, including a special review of social, shopping and
sports.
Key insights from
the 2013 Argentina Digital Future in Focus report include:
The Argentinian
online population tends to be older than the regional average,
with nearly 25 percent of internet users age 45 and older. Users
age 55 and older spend the most time online, with nearly 24
hours on average per user in August 2013.
Half of Argentinas
online population accessed Sports sites in August, ahead of
both the regional average (44 percent) and worldwide average
(39 percent).
Online Retail
Sites continue to grow in Argentina, reaching nearly 74 percent
of its total online audience in August 2013. Alibaba.com was
the fastest gaining property of the top 10 most-visited Retail
websites, growing 96 percent in the past year.
Argentina is the
third most highly engaged social networking market worldwide,
with users spending an average of 9 hours in the category in
August 2013.
Mobile phones
and tablets continue to account for a growing amount of digital
traffic. Argentina now sees 7.9 percent of all web-based page
views consumed beyond the personal computer, predominantly on
smartphones and tablets.
Internet users
in Argentina are the most likely in Latin America to view online
video content, with more than 95 percent of Argentinas
internet population doing so in August 2013.
Christophe
Pelletier
is one of the worlds experts on the future of food and agriculture.
During his studies and his career, he has been active in Beef,
Dairy, Animal Feed, Nutrition, Pork, Poultry and Seafood.
He has filled a wide
diversity of positions in Scientific and Technical support, Planning,
Supply Chain, Procurement, Quality Control, Traceability, Food
Safety, Sales & Marketing, Plant Management and Senior Executive
level. He has conducted business internationally, on four continents,
and negotiated multimillion deals with farmers, traders, wholesalers,
leading retailers and food processors. Thanks to his strategic
and leadership abilities, he successfully has turned around lagging
operations into profitable and viable activities within very short
periods of time. He has lived in three countries and he speaks
five languages. He is a citizen of both Canada and the EU.
In his leadership
positions, he set up and led multicultural teams that consistently
outperformed their peers and competitors. During a team review
conducted by Hay Group, his staff described him as an empathic
visionary leader. He always fosters a stimulating and exciting
atmosphere for his teams and he is a strong believer of clarity,
simplicity, talent and delegation.
Christophe Pelletier
obtained his Master of Science degree from the Institut National
Agronomique Paris-Grignon in France (now renamed AgroParisTech),
where he specialized in Economy and Development of Animal Production.
He started his career
within BP Nutrition, which later became the Dutch-based agribusiness
multinational Nutreco. He started as a pig production expert supporting
the Dutch feed company team of technical extension specialists.
He reviewed the use of feed ingredients and investigated new alternatives
for pig nutrition. He developed new husbandry systems, developed
the companys activity of piglet export from the Netherlands,
and worked as a liaison between the Dutch, French and Spanish
animal feed companies. He then moved to the Dutch poultry processing
division where he worked in sales. He became Sales Director and
successfully restructured sales in Germany. He initiated the ISO
9000 certification of the plant and set up a coordinated European
sales approach including the Dutch, Belgian and Spanish plants,
leading to major performance improvements. He then moved to the
salmon farming division to structure all post-harvest activities
in Chile and in Canada. He determined a new sales strategy, implemented
harvest planning and quality control procedures in the processing
plants. The results were substantial cost reduction and stronger
sales revenue.
Christophe is the
author of two books:
o Future
Harvests The Next Agricultural Revolution,
published in August 2010, explores whether and how future food
production can meet demand at the horizon 2050
January 30, 2014 the
future of Urban Mobility January 30, 2014, 18:30 - 21:15
Location: Info.nl,
Sint Antoniesbreestraat 16, 1011 HB Amsterdam [Next
to Nieuwmarkt]
This
event is supported by Info.nl
& TPEX (TelePresence
EXchange International)
February 27, 2014 the
future of Learning
The impact of culture on teaching and early learning.
February 27, 2014, 18:30 - 21:15
Location:
THNK, Haarlemmerweg 8a, 1014 BE Amsterdam (Westergasfabriek)
A collaboration between THNK, the Amsterdam School
of Creative Leadership and the Club of Amsterdam
March 27, 2014
the
future of Creativity, Arts & Consciousness March 27, 2014, 18:30 - 21:15 (Amsterdam
time)
Location: Mediamatic,
Van Gendthallen (next to Roest), VOC-kade 10, Amsterdam
Co-location: The Vortex Dome, Los Angeles
A
collaboration between Mediamatic,
Vortex Immersion Media, Tpex and the Club of Amsterdam
April
24, 2014
the
future of ... April 24, 2014, 18:30 - 21:15
May 29, 2014
the future of Green
Architecture May 29, 2014, 18:30 - 21:15
Location: Geelvinck Museum, Keizersgracht 633, 1017
DS Amsterdam
A
collaboration between
Geelvinck Museum and
the Club of Amsterdam
June 26, 2013
the
future of ... June 26, 2014, 18:30 - 21:15