Transport in urban areas is nowadays confronted with three major problem areas, namely congestion, pollution and resource consumption, and safety. Apart from these core issues, urban transport is also subjected to the need to fulfill the conditions for sustainability in its wider sense, i.e. it must fit into a development model which is economically, socially, and environmentally viable. New urban transport technologies will have to fulfill different sustainability conditions in the future. But urban transport is not just a question of technological innovations, of better vehicles and support technologies, but also one of city structures, organization, and individual mobility behaviour. In order to make a prospective analysis of urban transport technologies it is therefore necessary to integrate them into the wider picture of the future of the city as a living space for the individual. In order to dispose of a manageable set of alternative contexts for future urban transport, the great variety of possible future development paths is summarized in a simplified way in two main visions or scenarios for the future of the city. The first one ("expansion-oriented mobility") is based on a structurally and behaviourally unaltered picture which is essentially based on improvements of a combination of public transport and the individual car. The second one ("sustainability-oriented mobility") would require changes of individual mobility behaviour thus representing an alternative which aims not only at improving and shifting traffic, but also at reducing transport requirements. Based on these two broader pictures and their requirements/implications, a more specific analysis of some major emerging technological options, their comparison and assessment is made. This represents the major part of the paper, and emphasis is put on new automotive technologies and those associated to it. They are each analysed inside the contexts of the two different scenarios, both with regard to the possibilities for different emerging technologies to solve the specific transport-related problems (environment, congestion, safety), but also with regard to the wider sustainability criteria (i.e. for maintaining economic activity, quality of life). But also the expected possibilities to establish the different technologies will be discussed, both in terms of technical and non-technical feasibility conditions. On the grounds of this analysis and as a conclusion, a number of implications are highlighted both for urban transport planning as well as for priority setting in research and technology policy. (A)
Abstract