New mobility – new city?

Interactions between new mobility concepts and urban space

The car in the city has remained a matter of course; only very gradually is the bicycle conquering a place in the city; pedestrians are often left with only the pedestrian zone in the city centre as the place where walking has priority.

In order to push back the dominance of the car, measures have been and are being implemented in cities that, on the one hand, make the use of the private car unattractive and, on the other hand, provide and promote environmentally friendly and, above all, less space-consuming mobility alternatives. In addition to traditional public transport and cycling, these include the shared use of vehicles, especially in the context of car or ridesharing..

The simultaneously growing discussion on the redistribution of public space is accompanied nationally and internationally by diverse experiments that make the changed urban space tangible and give people a direct impression of how less traffic can create more quality of life..

Using examples from Germany and Europe, Barbara Lenz described in her lecture which ideas and options are behind the term “new mobility concepts” and which framework conditions are necessary for their success, but above all for the expected effect on public space and traffic in the city (lecture in German).

DLR Institute of Transport Research
The Institute of Transport Research in Berlin-Adlershof is one of four research institutes in the Transport programme area of the German Aerospace Center. The Berlin institute’s research is based on a holistic, systemic approach that focuses on people as actors.
The central topics include the transport behaviour of individuals and households, the acceptance of new technologies and mobility concepts, such as automated driving, urban mobility and mobility in the periphery of cities, but also economic and freight transport within cities, nationally and internationally.