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Customer LoginsThe rapidly changing face of urban mobility
Two years ago IHS Automotive released the findings of an intense study, The Impact of New Urban Mobility, which foretold the changes in personal mobility that can be expected as the population density of urban areas continues to increase. That work led us to expect a massive change in car ownership patterns due to the confluence of traffic congestion, the availability of increasingly convenient alternative forms of mobility - both real and virtual, and the desire - even the requirement - for urban planners and transportation managers to control congestion to ensure the fluid mobility of cities and towns.
An update to that work, March to New Urban Mobility, has just been released. This most recent work suggests that the expected changes appear to be happening much more rapidly than had been forecast a scant two years ago. Cities on a global scale, from the most wealthy to those among the poorest are taking steps to mitigate if not avoid altogether the personally owned car.
Change in how people move about in urban areas is happening at an ever increasing pace in many, many cities and urban areas around the world. The private motor car, for all the benefits it has brought to modern society, is being joined in its mission by alternative physical as well as virtual means, and often by a combination of those two. The personally owned automobile or light truck (SUV, CUV, MPV) will increasingly share urban roadways with cyclists, sub A-segment vehicles, two- and three-wheelers as well as traditional mass transit vehicles. All these vehicles, including the private car, will benefit from substantially enhanced information and navigation systems and in some cases self-driving capabilities to help the traveler get from Point A to B in the most efficient manner.
There are no show-stoppers. For every obstacle, there are multiple solutions. As we have assembled this report, we have become increasingly impressed with the depth and breadth of change that is developing. While still in embryonic stages, the changes are widespread and the motivating forces (Money, time, quality of life) powerful.
Those organizations who fail to assess and take into account the power of the forces driving change in urban mobility and dependency on the personal motor car do so at their peril. How those forces manifest themselves in each locale are as different as are the individual cities to one and another. There is no single technology or new business model that will create this change. Rather it is the accumulated total impact of many factors that will result in a change in the way we use privately owned motor vehicles and the opportunities provided by business models associated with the provision of personal mobility.
Phil Gott, Senior Director, long range planning, IHS Automotive.