The Future of Mobility: Emerging Trends, Disruptive Technologies & Investment Opportunities

Lecture details

The Future of Mobility: Emerging Trends, Disruptive Technologies & Investment Opportunities

13 April 2023
11.00 am – 12.30 pm. 
The URA White Room 3rd Storey, The URA Centre, 45 Maxwell Road Singapore 069118
1.5 SIP CPD Pts.

Seats are available on a first come, first served basis. Please be seated 10 minutes before lecture begins, after which we will open the venue to walk-in guests.

Synopsis

As part of an ongoing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), CLC and the Center for Innovation in Transport (CENIT) are collaborating on a joint research project on Measuring the Socio-Economic Costs and Benefits of Sustainable Mobility.

In November 2022, CLC led an inter-agency delegation to Barcelona to learn about the city’s best practices in sustainable mobility, hosted by CENIT. In return, a 2-person delegation from Barcelona visited Singapore from 10 to 15 April 2023, led by Dr Sergi Saurí, Director of CENIT.

On 14 April 2023, Dr Saurí held a public lecture on some of the current trends in urban mobility, focusing on the disruptive technologies that are transforming the industry. The session provided insights into the latest research on electric vehicles, autonomous transportation, and other emerging technologies, as well as the investment landscape for mobility sector. This was followed by a Q&A session, moderated by Shawn Tan, Deputy Director (CLC, Research).

Lecture report

Figure 1: The European Commission’s ‘Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy’ and its Action Plan aim to guide its transformation of its transport system towards milestones of varying time horizons. Adapted from: European Commission

In 2020, the European Commission presented its Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, together with an Action Plan of 82 initiatives. This strategy described how the EU’s transport system could transition towards being more sustainable and resilient to future crises, through green and digital transformation. Efforts from this strategy aimed to reduce transport-based emissions by 90% by 2050, via smart, competitive, safe, accessible and affordable transport systems. See Figure 1.

Figure 2: By considering the axes of strategies and tools, governments can develop a repository of mobility management instruments to meet their sustainable transport transition needs. Source: CENIT

To achieve this, Dr Saurí outlined how governments could utilise several mobility management instruments, classified by the type of strategy employed (improving efficiency and shifting modes), and the corresponding tools identified (pricing, restriction-based, or investments). Specifically, most sustainable mobility initiatives would fall within this matrix.

Mobility management strategies can also be classified based on the amount of time needed for implementation. For example, improving the efficiency and capacity of the network would be a shorter-term solution, while introducing a modal shift and change in activity locations or land uses would require longer-term commitment in order to bring about traffic impact.

In his lecture, Dr Saurí also explained how global trends and driving forces, such as climate change and technological developments could directly impact the supply and sustainability of transport modes, both positively and negatively. See Figure 3. He argued that the concept and implementation of sustainability in urban mobility could be considered more holistically. For example, planners may not fully appreciate the energy sources (and their cost and land take implications) required to power the transition towards sustainable mobility options.

Figure 3: Global trends and how they impact the supply of transport modes.Source: CENIT

“We are currently projecting the future of transport with the same paradigm in which it has led us to the current situation, despite technological advances, and transferring part of the current externalities to other areas exogenous to transport.” – Dr Sergi Sauri

As such, Dr Saurí proposed a framework to rethink sustainable mobility and address sustainability in a more holistic manner. He charted the evolution of mobility planning paradigms in three key stages, each with a corresponding shift in thinking. See Figure 4. The first stage adopted a vehicle-based perspective by focusing on traffic optimisation and road maximisation, often coinciding with urban growth and the growth of national car industries. However, as this resulted in congestion and pollution, a shift from traffic growth policies to traffic containment policies was introduced. At this stage, a more person-trip perspective was adopted, and public transport was promoted together with restrictions on traffic and parking. However, this did not always equate to a decrease in car use and its related externalities such as congestion and pollution. This resulted in a shift of thinking towards “liveable city” policies, which focused on improving overall quality of life, through traffic and pollution reduction, and promoting active mobility.

“Perhaps the most sustainable form of urban mobility [excluding walking and cycling] does not exist yet.
” – Dr Sergi Sauri

Dr Saurí opined that for true sustainable mobility, a further paradigm shift would be needed: one that would integrate all issues related to transport, energy, and society in a holistic planning approach, that also considers the full lifecycle and entire value chain for each transport mode. A comprehensive vision of mobility should integrate across multiple mobility modes and sectors at both metropolitan and regional-scale throughout the planning stages.

Figure 4: Dr Saurí’s take on the next bound to Dr Peter Jones’ evolution of perspectives on urban mobility. Source: CENIT, adapted from Peter Jones (2014)

Reflecting on the session, members of the audience were curious about how cities could transition to a truly sustainable mobility model, and if there were any innovative methods that could enable this, given entrenched systems and infrastructure, and mindsets. Dr Saurí highlighted the importance of having a strong vision and public sector leadership in helping to steer the different stakeholders in the mobility sector through uncertainty during this transition. He also emphasised the importance of public-private-academic partnerships as platforms for innovation. Additionally, a multi-sectoral approach by governments would be critical in helping policy makers and planners re-think transport in a holistic manner.

About the Speakers

SPEAKER
Dr. Sergi Saurí
Director
CENIT

Dr. Sergi Saurí has been the Director of CENIT since 2013. He also serves as Lecturer (part time) at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of UPC-BarcelonaTech and at the Tecnocampus of Pompeu Fabra University.

He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from UPC-Barcelona Tech and a Bachelor in Economics from the University of Barcelona. He also holds a Master’s Degree in Shipping Business from UPC-Barcelona Tech.

Currently he is member of the Board Committee of the Professional Association of Civil Engineers of Catalonia. He previously served as Assistant Professor in Transportation at UPC and Director of the Master in Supply Chain, Transportation and Mobility at the same institution.

His PhD thesis on Optimization of Regulation for Public-Private Partnerships in Container Port Concessions was awarded the IV Abertis Transport Infrastructure Management Award and he was a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2008.

An expert in the areas of the transport modelling and transport economics, he is the author of a variety of scientific publications and has led multiple projects in both the public and private sectors.

Resources

Lecture poster [PDF, 303 KB]