mobility
shape together.
We’ve been working toward this event for years, and now it’s behind us—undoubtedly the highlight of the 2021 congress. And that’s not just because there were so few gatherings beforehand due to the pandemic. But let’s start from the beginning: What are the key takeaways from the ITS World Congress in Hamburg?
I’ve personally attended the ITS World Congress twice before—once in Montreal and once in Singapore. Both times I was there as an exhibitor, but this time I treated myself to a conference ticket. First off: The significant price difference between the trade show and the congress is justified by the breadth of the program. In terms of content, there was a showcase of a vast number of projects from all over the world, and it was quite a challenge to put together a schedule for yourself to catch the parts that interested you.
In terms of content, it was both highly interesting and sobering. I had taken a particular look at the areas of MaaS (Mobility as a Service) and on-demand transportation/ridepooling. Projects are being driven forward and insights gathered in this field worldwide. It was sobering above all because the results were very similar. The barriers are obviously the same in many cases. People are struggling with bureaucratic hurdles, software companies are facing new challenges they don’t quite know how to handle, and the new transportation services aren’t being used as hoped.
Things got interesting during the presentations by the various manufacturers. Some made it very clear that their transportation concepts will only succeed if we have zero-emission powertrains and autonomous vehicles that can operate without a driver. What sounds like a truism inevitably leads to the realization that we will likely soon have many vehicles on the roads that do not require a driver’s license. This also raises the question of what role public transportation will play in these future scenarios. Will it continue to serve a fundamental function and consolidate a large volume of traffic, or will we in the future be traveling in many individual capsules that leave no room for other modes of transportation? These are fundamental questions that we must definitely address in light of technological developments.
The exhibition area featured a gathering of a wide variety of IT service providers. The leading German companies were all there, and the public transportation IT industry was almost entirely represented; there was a broad range of vehicles on display, from electric cars to robots and drones. In addition, as is now so often the case at trade shows, there was a separate area for startups—or those who want to be considered as such. As a result, it sometimes took a second look to tell whether a proven solution or just a prototype was on display.
In many cases, people kept bringing up the chicken-and-egg problem. The software industry wants to deliver, but doesn’t know exactly what the product should look like. That’s where they expect input from the customer. The customers, mostly transportation companies or government agencies, would like to purchase innovative solutions but can’t find anything on the market that’s ready to go. There is a clear lack of innovation among all parties involved, as well as a lack of willingness to take risks.
What else was there: In a very impressive speech at the opening ceremony, Auma Obama highlighted the challenges facing transportation projects in her home country of Kenya. An innovative railway line was built there between Nairobi and Mombasa. State-of-the-art, unaffordable for the majority of the population, and built right through a nature reserve. The latter resulted in lions from the nature reserve straying into the urban area of Nairobi. The project is being financed through a long-term loan from China to Kenya, which leads to massive dependency. It would be hard to find a single example that more clearly illustrates the ripple effects of a single, not-entirely-thought-through transportation project.
All in all, this was certainly the most impressive mobility conference I’ve attended in recent years. I’m writing this primarily so that we can all take another look at the lessons learned from these developments. Everything we do has consequences and repercussions. The decisions we make now regarding mobility will have an impact on the coming decades, much like the car-friendly cities of the 1950s did. That is why I hope that we will continue and deepen the discussion we have begun on this topic.