Intelligent mobility

Intelligent mobility can be achieved with planning and efficiency. Thanks to careful urban planning, the places in which we live, work and shop will in future be located close to each other. So travelling distances will be shorter. Virtual media such as video conferences and teleworking make travel quite superfluous. The remaining mobility needs will be covered by efficient modes of transport.

Our modern society is mobile. We travel many kilometres each week. Each Swiss resident travels an average of 50 kilometres a day. Some of that goes on commuting, which not many people enjoy. But we also like to travel in our leisure time. We get in the car for a ride or to go shopping. We fly on our holidays. CO₂ is produced every time we do that. 

That’s a lot. The good thing is that it’s up to us, or rather to our legs, to change this. 

Efficient modes of transport for unavoidable travel 

The journey is the goal, as the saying goes. In terms of mobility, this would mean: the goal means shorter journeys. And if we’re going on a journey, the goal must be: intelligent mobility. Less, but more efficiently. Today, a new car consumes eight litres of petrol to cover a hundred kilometres. Cars can currently go about 1 km with a kilowatt-hour (kWh) of energy. That’s a lot of energy – it would take you about ten hours to use it up on foot or by bicycle. A really efficient vehicle travels 25 to 50 km per kilowatt-hour. In comparison, today’s cars look like dinosaurs of the mobility age. We all know what happened to those primeval giants. The mobile future will be more efficient. 

Making travel shorter or quite superfluous

In future we will be less mobile, because we will plan better. In personal terms, this means that wherever possible we will arrange matters by phone or via the Internet. Activities that require travel will be grouped so that we need to travel less. To reduce our need for commuting, we will live close to our place of work. This will be facilitated by better space planning. Work locations and residential estates as well as shopping centres will be located close to each other.

This may appear to be a big step, but it is an important one if we are to achieve a responsible future that is worth living.