6 predictions that will make you understand how new urban mobility is going to affect you.

This is a brief summary of what is coming in the urban mobility context. Do you agree ?

1. Become electric... or die. The growth of the electric vehicle will be exponential.

There is a clear consensus that the electric vehicle will be gaining market share exponentially, at least, car manufacturers have a clear idea about it. Virtually, they all have announced millionaire investments in their electrification programmes, Volkswagen with 40.000 M$ until 2030, Ford with 11.000 M$ until 2022, Daimler with 11.700 M$ until 2025 are only few examples of this clear strategy of trying to catch up with China in the e-mobility sector. Once again, China is leading this new scenario and currently has by far, the biggest market for EVs, In 2017, a total of 1.1 million electric vehicles were sold worldwide. Of this total, 49% ended up reaching the Chinese market.

China's privilege position has been possible thanks to it's aggressive strategy to foster the electric vehicle, which results for instace in imposing 10% EV sales quotas for 2019 (12% for 2020).

Apart from this short macro analysis of the global market it's important to remark that the main barriers that has prevented the growth of the electric vehicle market are disappearing at greater or lesser rate depending on each country or city, all due to the large investments in charging infrastructure for EVs, and the gradual reduction of the cost of electric cars due to falling battery costs and economies of scale we have started to see, that trend will become even more pronounced due to the great advances predicted in EVs batteries (solid-state technology, Lithium-sulfur batteries etc.) that besides causing prices to fall will multiply the range of the vehicle by 2 or 3 in the next 4 or 5 years.

2. The biggest business around urban mobility will be the autonomous vehicle.

The autonomous vehicle will take you where you need, efficiently and safely, but above all it will be a space where you will be able to work, enjoy your favorite Netflix series, or order what you need online. The autonomous car will be safe and it is expected that by 2050 the number of traffic accidents will be reduced by 80% thanks to autonomous driving, that is great, but when it comes to make bussiness this emerging sector might surprise you as well.

Does anyone imagine how valuable having direct access to a potential client for at least 1.5 hours per day is?, that's the average time a commuter spends driving his car daily. Until now, we could only listen to the radio when driving but with the autonomous vehicle it will be very easy to expose us to usual advertising ruled by Google, Facebook, Amazon etc, A new world of businesses opportunities will be open for those who know how to capture our attention inside the vehicle that will take us daily to our destination.

As you might already been thinking, each user will have a "preferences profile" that the vehicle can access, ie, Spotify lists, volume of the music, seat height, interior temperature, favorite routes ... the vehicle will understand your orders and even predict some of your wishes ! certainly it will be as close to KIT as you can imagine, although smarter, connected and efficient (and less ironic) :)

Other users will want to go to the speed limit allowed to arrive earlier, others will prefer to go more slowly to avoid dizziness, ... i am sorry but we will get dizzy in autonomus vehicles , future driverless cars will have to overcome the problem of boarding sickness. Don't you get dizzy when trying to read something in the car when you are not driving? We will also be able to choose if we want to make the trip alone or to share it so that the cost per trip is cheaper as it currently happens with UBER and other similar services.

Think about how atractive for a company like Burger King might be to buy advertising to a fleet of autonomous taxis so that when users make routes near one of their restaurants the vehicle suggest the traveler to stop at Auto King to make the same order they registered in his/her last visit, that way with just one click your ordert could start being prepared and avoid waiting in the queue!

3. Expect the unexpected. New vehicles and transportation modes will be a reality, once again.

?Until recently, thinking about flying autonomous taxis might seem a far-fetched scenario, economically unviable or something that we will see in 50 or 60 years time. Equally, some years ago it would have seem crazy to fly from Madrid to London for just 19.90 Euros, now it is possible. At present, running a service of flying taxis with access from the roof of office buildings is not so far, as an example of this video where UBER explains its UBERair service and announces that it will go live in Los Angeles and Dallas in 2020.

On the other hand, 5 or 6 years ago, nobody knew what was a Hoverboard (basically a 2-wheel electric device on which you have to maintain your balance), now we see them everywhere in our streets..., urban mobility evolves so fast that we are barely able to predict what will be successful in a few years time.

I can't help mentioning Hyperloop here ! The great promise of traveling comfortably at 1.200 km/h seems to be getting closer. This new mean of transport is destined to be a serious competitor to air transportation, and it is also expected to be unbeatable in many aspects. Here you have an interesting video to check the progress of this revolution !

Finally, in case you need more I am sure you will find this 10 future transportation video very inspiring too.

4. New era of public transport: smarter, safer and 100% sustainable

Our cities are becoming more and more congested due to growth and economic development ,under these circumstances, public transport is a key ally to keep traffic congestion under control and encouraging people to use it more often is crucial in order to have a liveable and balanced city.

Modern cities have understood how important is to make public transport smarter, more efficient and sustainable and it's no secret that local authorities around the world are buying electric buses to China at a frenetic pace, not only encouraged by the fact that they feel the pressure to lead by example in terms of fostering e-mobility but also because air quality and noise have become big problems for guaranteeing a proper quality of life for their citizens.

We will be witness of how public transport operators and authorities share transit big data to let others (mapping platforms and third-party applications) to design tailor made mobility services, to help people navigate cities around the world and make urban mobility and public transport more appealing, affordable and useful.

5. In the medium term we will subscribe to mobility services instead of owning a car 

At present there are plenty of APPs that offer us different, convenient and affordable shared mobility services that are being used more and more often worldwide.

This trend will grow exponentially, new generations will not be willing to spend 20,000 euros on a private car, instead, they will value the freedom of not having fixed expenses and will prefer to invest that money in education, traveling or live better.

In this light, it is necessary to mention the concept "Mobility as a Service (MaaS)" that basically enables users to plan their transportation routes using different modes of transport in a seamless, convenient and friendly way. MaaS requires the collaboration and interaction of various stakeholders such as public transportation operators, operators in the carsharing, ride hailing, and bike sharing fields. MaaS is more than just an app, users will use “aggregator apps” that specialize in integrating various mobility service providers (such as car2go and Uber) onto one screen interface.

This allows users to know where the nearest car share or ride hail vehicle is among multiple providers and can also help with complex route planning to know what’s the quickest or cheapest way to get to their destination, using various modes of transportation.

At present, there are some attemps of getting a working MaaS service in different pilot projects but there are still some difficulties and challenges to overcome. Fortunately, this mobility model this mobility model will grow and be strengthen over time and citizens will be able to subscribe to a whole range of mobility options and pay only for what they need and use.

As a result, the consequences of a large scale adoption of shared mobility services will be very serious for the sale of cars, in particular sales are expected to fall by around 40% in the medium term scenario. Against this background large multinationals such as BMW, BOSCH, DAIMLER, GENERAL MOTORS, UBER etc, are on the one hand hurrying to invest and get involved in projects and shared mobility companies such as COUP, JUMP BIKES etc, and on the other, thinking of evolving from car manufacturers to suppliers of services.

These movements are due to the need they have to diversify their business lines, especially taking into account the imminent obsolescence of the combustion vehicle in favor of the electric one, this will undoubtedly trigger a loss of income due to the lower maintenance and repair costs expected from the electric cars, therefore the revenues from scheduled checks and repairs will plummet.

At that moment, something similar will happen to what already happened with the business model of service stations, where selling fuel represents only a part of the income (where they get small margins) and have found in the sale of products from the attached stores a really profitable bussiness.

6. Environmental regulations and the promotion of sustainable mobility on a large scale will almost kill off the combustion vehicles.

The position of governments and cities to decarbonize means of transport is clear and there's no turning back. Many countries have announced they will ban the sale of combustion vehicles (mainly diesel) in a few years; you can check here the list of countries already on board.

 Needless to say cities will be the ones that will suffer the consequences of this huge transportation model shift, for better or worse and to make it happen they have deployed programs and incentives to promote sustainable mobility (cycling, walking, e-vehicles) of all kinds and scope.

 Among these measures, there are some that surely are going to affect more than others, in particular, many cities will soon impose restrictions on access to polluting vehicles as well as other dissuasive measures in order to keep the city free of pollution and make them more livable.

 Madrid is a good example of that, as part of its new “Air quality Plan”, Madrid will ban cars within 23 out of the most relevant and busy streets of the city by 2019 (only bikes, public transport and taxis will be allowed) and will also ban all diesel cars from by 2025 and will charge polluting cars more to park as well. In this link you have many other cities that take very seriously to preserve their air quality with forceful measures.

 Are you thinking about buying a new car? First, make sure whether you’ll be allowed to drive through the city center or not in the future.