Smart mobility can build more sustainable cities
20 Feb 2019
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Smart mobility promises to transform our lives, besides saving enormous amount of time and money for ordinary folk says Dr. Irfan Khan, founder, eBike
Gone are the days when old cycle rickshaws could be hailed from the doorstep. This would mostly happen in a small town or lesser developed areas. With the changing time auto rickshaws and e-rickshaws came into the picture, but the issue was that they did not provide the door-to-door facilities.
As chaos increased in cities with growing population and ambitious youngsters on the rise, people are turning towards smart mobility. Many are upgrading to smart solutions to save time and money in congested and jammed cities.
We now have apps that help us with public transport, car pooling and other modes to save resources. Smart mobility is the highest priority with electric cars, scooters and bicycles, especially after considering other modes and their hazards. Smart mobility solutions create less congestion, ensure cleaner air and better accessibility to the public.
Traffic congestion causes major air pollution in cities. More vehicles lead to traffic congestion on roads, so improving transportation network is an ideal solution to improve air quality.
But building more roadways cannot provide a good solution for traffic congestion. Improving utilisation of existing infrastructure, integrated with smart connectivity and automation have tremendous opportunities to rethink the transport system.
Mobility is the movement of individuals, information or products from one destination to another and Smart Mobility means ride-sharing, car-sharing, public transportation, walking and biking instead of owning a gas-fueled vehicle. The need for smart mobility arose out of increasing traffic congestion and the related side effects which include pollution, accident, and waste of time.
Governments around the globe have tried to develop solutions to address traffic congestion, yet the number of personal vehicles keeps increasing.
It’s time now for a new approach, rather than analysing “how many” and “how often”; city administrations should be know where do these people come from and where are they heading to and why are they there?
Smart Mobility is the intelligent integration of shared mobility choices; for example, carpooling, vehicle sharing, bicycle sharing projects and well developed public transport services. Vehicle sharing can offer significant money saving advantages over vehicle ownership and can contribute to reducing pollution as well. It saves time and money too. Adopting ride-sharing would reduce general costs, help city transportation and save time for people.
The traditional mobility system is the largest contributor to pollution. And the alternative is ‘Smart Mobility’, which can enable us to construct sustainable cities with consistent, adaptable and productive development across different modes of transport. The idea of smart mobility includes a wide range of methods of transportation: kick bikes, bicycles, light rail trains, trams, streetcars, taxis, self-sufficient vehicles, walking and the list is growing.
To sum up, a Smart City does not react to traffic issues by building more roads; it will look for different alternatives. Prevalent decisions include encouraging more walking, biking, and public transportation use.
