Transcription

00: 00:09

00: Welcome to the IAA Mobility visionary Club Podcast. Here we explore the intersection of technology, transportation and sustainability. In this podcast, our host is an AI generated voice, but the insights and perspectives shared by our guests are purely human. Each episode features two guests who bring their diverse professional backgrounds and personal experiences to the table. Today we welcome Marco Tsavachidis, CEO of EIT Urban Mobility, and Professor Marco Tebrumlstrut, professor of Urban Mobility at the University of Amsterdam.

00: 00:46

00: Would you like to introduce yourselves briefly? Marco, let's start with you. Thanks a lot. So, my name is Marco Tsavachidis. I'm the CEO of EIT Urban Mobility, and we are the innovation community for urban mobility in Europe, and we are co funded by the European Union.

00: 01:08

00: And our mission is to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable mobility in cities and create more livable urban spaces. So that's me. Thank you. How about you, Marco? Please introduce yourself.

00: 01:29

00: My name is Marcostut. I'm a professor in urban mobility futures at the University of Amsterdam, and that's located in the social science department. So I'm interested in mobility, especially in. The ways that we think about mobility. How that limits us in thinking about problems and solutions.

00: 01:47

00: And I'm looking for ways to constructively. Open up new narratives to think about mobility. So that's me. Thank you. Marco in this episode, our guests will share their knowledge and expertise on topics such as smart cities and urban planning, micromobility, last mile solutions, and sustainable transportation.

00: 02:07

00: They will also provide personal anecdotes and insights that add a human touch to our discussions. Join us as we dive into the fascinating world of mobility and discover how it impacts our lives in ways we may have never imagined. Marco Marco, we have prepared questions for you. Please take turns choosing questions. Would you like to start?

00: 02:28

00: Marco well, actually, I think I want. To give the honor to Marco. Okay, good. So how about we start with urban planning and architecture, and we go with level two. In what ways can urban planning and design contribute to the creation of sustainable transportation systems that prioritize public transit and active modes of transportation?

00: 02:57

00: Okay, so I think that's something that's been neglected for many years. So the influence that urban planning really has on the livability of cities, but then also on sustainable mobility. So it's actually two sides of the same coin. So if we don't plan the cities and design the cities in a way that we actually don't need to use a car to get from where we are to where we need to be or want to be, then actually we cannot have sustainable mobility. So what we see now is that we revert back to those more people centric designs.

00: 03:38

00: So with concept of the 15 minutes cities, so creating more proximity in cities, and density, of course, being one of the prerequisites of being able to reduce the need to travel. And so we are seeing this in cities. Of course, Paris being the front runner in this, but actually many cities doing variations of this and probably having done that already before Paris has done it. So Paris is like the poster city for then. I mean, bringing together different mixes of functions in districts, in areas, in neighborhoods, and actually alleviating the need for people to travel long distance.

00: 04:28

00: And this is the only way you can actually reduce the need to travel and reduce transportation. And we have increased so in the past decades. We have increased more and more the distances traveled. But I mean, in fact, everything about traveling, so the size of the cars, everything more, more and and more, bigger, bigger, bigger. So it's now time to look at the demand side of things and urban planning is the key to that.

00: 05:05

00: But probably this is something that Marco has a lot to add to. So. Over to you, Marco. Well, I think I largely agree with you and I think it's spot on that it's about distance, density and diversity of cities in the 15 minutes city as an interesting concept. But for me, again, I'm social scientist, urban planning is also about storytelling.

00: 05:29

00: So it's not only how do we plan cities, but also what kind of goals are we following. And the 50 minutes city often is still seen as a sort of an optimization technique to help people reach their desired activities within shorter distances. And of course, that's important. But the 50 minutes city, as developed by Carlos Moreno is also about other qualities and other dimensions of urban life, like social cohesion or being proud of the city where you live in. And I think it's about time that we put these new kinds of goals or central in the way that we plan cities and that mobility becomes sort of a secondary, a secondary aspect in thinking about our streets.

00: 06:19

00: Thank you. Please choose your next question. Now it's my turn, right?

00: 06:27

00: Where are we going? So let's go to sustainable transportation and then let's go for level three. What societal changes are needed to boost sustainable urban mobility? How can cities expedite this transition? Yeah, I think this is a nice segue of the conversation that we just started.

00: 06:45

00: For me, if you ask me personally, I think the only way that we can radically change mobility and I think the radical change is required because the current system is not only unsustainable, but it's so problematic on so many levels that we need radical change. And that will only happen if we are willing and able to challenge our underlying narratives. So the whole ideas that we have, the worldviews that we have, the things that we think or take for granted that are important, I think if we do not challenge them, we might make the current mobility system a bit more sustainable, but we will not radically change it. So it will keep on depleting individuals, depleting society, and depleting the environment. So it's on the deepest level where Duneva Meadows already said this is the deepest leverage point.

00: 07:34

00: If you want to change a system, you have to go to the narratives. And one example of that, I always like to ask if people say mobility needs to be more sustainable, more livable and safer, I ask them if that would be a suitable answer. If you ask a friend that you haven't seen for a long time in the bar and you ask him how their marriage is going and their answer is well, my marriage is sustainable, livable and safe. If you think that that's a good answer or if you start worrying, right, so sustainable, livable and safe are sort of dissatisfiers. Of course we need to make sure that our systems are not unsustainable and not unlivable.

00: 08:11

00: But I think we need also to sort of unlock the ideas that we want to work on cities that are actually meaningful and actually help us to be more optimal in the ways that we experience life. But Marco, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean of course we are totally on the same page here and I think the narrative is very important. But it sounds like yeah, it's only a story. No, it's actually a mindset.

00: 08:42

00: We have more in common, I mean all people have more in common than it sometimes seems. So sometimes we are actually building those confrontational discussions, the car proponents and the bicycle proponents and in the end what we want, all of us are livable cities. So what makes people happy? How do we want to live in cities? And I think if you ask lot of people, there will be a very common view on what makes them happy.

00: 09:21

00: So what makes us happy is people what makes us happy. So community, what makes us happy is green spaces. So there are even studies on the psychological effects of green on people so that it reduces depression and so on. So there is some very human principles that we have to, I think, focus more on and where we can find this common vision that unites us and then work towards that and not be confrontational about.

00: 10:05

00: Jeanette Sadiq Khan who was the Force of Disruption in New York City and she has introduced a lot of changes in New York City bicycle lanes, the bicycle sharing scheme there and so on. And what she said I found very on point. She said we need a rebranding. So instead of talking about car free cities, let's talk about people first cities, let's talk about car light cities. I mean, this is what everyone I think can subscribe to because this is how we want to live.

00: 10:39

00: Cities with fresh air, where people children can play on the street safely and so on. So let's focus on what unites us and not what actually segregates us. Thank you. Please choose your next question. Okay, so let's see how about yeah, social equity and accessibility.

00: 11:05

00: Level three, good level. How can rapidly growing cities in developing countries tackle urban mobility challenges such as congestion, road accidents, inclusion and pollution? Okay, so I think the levers are the same whether that's developing or developed countries. And we are kind of going a bit Back to the future now with so it doesn't really need high tech to get a more sustainable, more equitable, inclusive transport system. So cycling is one of the key levers.

00: 11:51

00: So cycling infrastructure, safe cycling infrastructure. Then of course a good public transport system which some cities had before there was high tech. And of course technology is a tool. It can help to increase the capacity, safety, et cetera, efficiency of public transport. But this is possible to be done without having metro lines everywhere.

00: 12:23

00: You can build trams, you can work with buses, bus rep, transit systems and so that are less costly. So cycling infrastructure, public transport infrastructure, then the urban planning aspect that we discussed is very important to keep in mind to really create those dense areas, not make the same mistakes as some continents did. I think in Europe, yes, of course we also made the mistake. But we are still in a much better situation than the US. For, I mean they started with New York City and then kind of stopped and went back to the suburban sprawl model.

00: 13:12

00: So I would say these are the two main levers here. I think many of the negative effects embedded in the question were actually effects. Of a system based around the car and individualized travel. And many of the cities that we are thinking of as to be developed or developing cities actually are not on a trajectory yet. So we can also avoid many of these problems by helping them figure out that there are also other trajectories than the ones that are often seen as almost a given.

00: 13:46

00: Like we have to follow in Chinese cities, we have to follow the same development patterns, we have to become like the western cities. And added to that, we are also doing research on innovation in the Global South. We find that we should also avoid colonizing the ideas about mobility from our perspective because mobility and accessibility and, and life in general have very different kinds of qualities from the perspective of people in the Global South. So I'm already hesitant in answering these kinds of questions about this context where we should, I think first, better understand what is, according to them, a good way forward. So we are finding that out, for instance, in the whole discussion about economic growth is that especially cultures from the Global South have very valuable ways of looking at the economy and ways to organize society that we are now using as inspiration to get out of the problems we created ourselves.

00: 14:51

00: So maybe this should also be the goal in the mobility field, is to learn from how things work elsewhere instead of sort of problematizing it and giving solutions that we already have. That's a good one. Yeah. Thank you. Please choose your next question.

00: 15:06

00: OOH, I like level three, so I'm definitely going for that. Let's switch to policy and governance. Level three. What role does public participation and citizen engagement play in shaping urban mobility policies? And how can cities effectively incorporate diverse perspectives and needs in the decision making process?

00: 15:29

00: Yeah, I think this is, for me, also one of the key challenges. And actually, again, I want to rephrase it as sort of first problematizing. What happened. And what happened, at least, and speaking from the Dutch context, is that we did exactly the opposite. So since the 1920s, when mobility, and especially cars created the first mobility problems, we have technocratized public space.

00: 15:51

00: So we have given it away to one expertise that we trained, we developed, we designed traffic engineering in the 1920s and that solidified in all kinds of guidelines and norms and models and institutions, and that sort of excluded diversity. So we are running into now the limits of this reductionist view on the street, where it's only serving one group of people, basically the able bodied, healthy white men that need to go to their cubicle to work in the office. And we are excluding all the other goals and other people from this discussion. Currently, we are in Amsterdam facing discussion with closing a central road, and you see the same thing happening, that the entire discussion is around how people in their cars now have to go around. And nobody's talking about 50% of the urban inhabitants, the children, for instance.

00: 16:47

00: So I think this is the key goal, is to develop stories, to develop narratives that are more inclusive, that also avoid, as we already said what Marco said earlier, to avoid pitching this as a good and bad and one against the other, but to develop narratives that help us escape this reductionism and bring more people to the table, make more people aware that they are active citizens and that their views matter and that our streets are public spaces that are, by definition, complex and by definition, places where we will disagree about what to do there. And I think that's the key challenge we have in Western society because we are not used to organize conflict. We are actually used to hide conflict away in norms and guidelines. So a challenge that will not be easy. But I think the only way forward is to embrace diversity in thinking and diversity in the use of our streets.

00: 17:44

00: Yeah. So if I may add so absolutely, I can concur with everything that Marco has said. Participation is essential to get public acceptance. And it's not only talking about sustainable mobility or redesigning public space. I mean, we experience that in our everyday lives.

00: 18:08

00: So if we are being made part of a problem, we are not engaged in a constructive dialogue, whereas if we are being involved as part of solution and given some agency to shape a solution that will bring about creativity, Positivity. And this will make adoption, acceptance of new schemes, new innovations, new designs much easier. And we have examples of where we failed and then learned from that. So I'm always referring to Barcelona because it's where our offices sit, and they have this super block concept. And the first Superblock that they started in one of the districts and Antony, where so the concept is that they have blocks of three by three blocks in the city where they actually get the traffic out.

00: 19:15

00: So the food traffic of cars out. And so they pedestrianize. They create playgrounds and green spaces within those blocks. And there was a huge, massive, actually, pushback from citizens. So within that was people living there who could not enter with their cars or so they thought, and the businesses and so on.

00: 19:42

00: So they did not have this preparatory dialogue. And after they installed it, actually they found that they were quite happy with that, but that took years. And then the next superblock that they installed in Poblino there, they actually did this participatory process with the people, engaged them in a dialogue, in shaping also how they would implement it. And so they didn't get this pushback that they had in Santoni. So it shows that it's really worth it to involve people.

00: 20:22

00: I think that the pushback is not something we want to avoid. I think the conflicts that are going to arise when we're going to make it even more complex, there will be more and more conflict. So I think what I take out of these experiences in Barcelona is that the dialogue will also not be simple. We are not only facing a technocracy, we're also facing citizens that have been used to be approached as consumers. So they also need to restart, sort of reboot their awareness that public space is always about decisions, it will always be about dilemmas and it will also always be about conflict.

00: 21:02

00: And I think actually having the conversation, not in a room with paper on the table, but having a conversation through change, through trying things out in a way that can fail, but that at least will teach us a lot. I think that's the way forward, that we can actually try to use our experiments really, not as pilots, but as places of dialogue where we can show and we can try business as unusual together, but also then create some sense of ease when there's a huge conflict. Because now also again in Amsterdam as example, there is this status quo people that will fight and they are very loud. But instead of trying to avoid that by putting them that all in participation, I think there's also a need for a mayor or a counselor to take a position, to take a stand and to say, look, this is what we're going to do. We take your concerns seriously.

00: 21:59

00: We are going to measure them, but we are going to do it in a conversation with all of you. Yeah. Amen, thank you. Please choose your next question. Okay, we haven't touched on smart cities and mobility.

00: 22:19

00: Let's go for level two. Which innovative technologies can be integrated into urban transportation systems to enhance efficiency, safety and convenience?

00: 22:31

00: Okay, I think there is a lot of technologies. You are aware, of course, of AI, I would say. So artificial intelligence will improve a lot regarding user friendliness, so informing people about choices, creating individualized trip advices, choosing what modes to use and maybe then even assisting to book, pay, whatever. So be a real personal assistant for traveling. I mean, that's a concept that's been around for quite a while.

00: 23:22

00: So I think 20 years we are talking about personal mobility assistance. But now I think is a time where technology wise, this is really possible, more than possible. So I think there we will see a lot happening. Then. Also, of course, machine learning helps the efficiency of maintenance already being used in public transport, rail transport, to avoid or to increase the reliability of public transport, which is very important even closely, or get close to where we need to be with the modal shift to public transport rail.

00: 24:18

00: So in Germany we say we have to increase the number of travelers on rail by 50, double within seven years. So by 2030, which is enormous. So for this we need more reliable public transport, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, including machine learning, will support that. Yeah, so I just picked one. But there are other technologies, of course, so I don't know.

00: 24:59

00: Do you want to add? Yeah, well, it's first to give two questions to the audience and then give my two cent. But one is that I already question if efficiency is a goal in itself, because it seems that efficiency has created most of the problems that we are facing. And also this example of the German railways that say that we need to double the amount of people in their trains. I think learning from the 50 minutes city, we need to half the amount of people on the trains, but we need to decimate the amount of people in cars.

00: 25:29

00: So we need to make mobility much less of a solution and make proximity and quality of life much more central. And the second question I want to raise there is I think we need less technology. If that technology takes away human agency and the use of the human body, because that's something I think we also lost. We are losing connections with the world around us. We are losing connections with other people and we're losing connections with our bodies.

00: 25:57

00: That's partly because we are giving more and more faculties away to technology. So I think we should be very wary about our studies also show that people actually do not want a seamless trip they actually missed during COVID They missed the trip to their work because of friction, not because it was always easy, but because the friction that they missed that makes the day worthwhile. But to have one technological solution, then, for those who want to follow that trajectory, I think the key one that we should implement this year, we can do it. So it just requires all of us to focus and to take it away elsewhere is intelligent speed assistance. Because the speed of cars, the fact that cars can speed as fast as the driver wants and accelerate as fast as the driver wants, is causing all the problems in our cities and makes us basically locks the street for any other use.

00: 26:55

00: So as soon as we as society realize the mistake of 100 years ago and govern the speed limit of these vehicles, we will save 1.3 million lives a year, and that's only traffic fatalities. But we will also be able to reclaim our streets back for all these other uses. And without intelligent speed assistance, and especially the ones with geofencing that we already use for Scooters, we should use them for cars. They work. The technology is there.

00: 27:24

00: We just need to implement it. So if we would put all our energy there, all of us, everybody who's listening, I think we can do this within a year and save so many lives and add so much quality. Thank you. Please choose your next question. OOH, another one.

00: 27:40

00: It's my turn. Yeah. Well, then, of course, obviously, we need to go for micromobility and last mile solutions, and then let's go for level one to make it easy. What are the advantages and limitations of micromobility options such as Escooters and bike sharing programs in addressing the challenges of last mile connectivity within urban areas? Interesting use of words there, because I think already this week I learned that talking about micromobility again is a linguistic or it's a narrative that actually enforces the fact that it's something alternative.

00: 28:17

00: So instead I would say let's talk about oversized mobility and use human scaled mobility as the norm. But in general, I think what is interesting, especially with what we call shared versions of Scooters and bikes, which is basically a rental service in most cases, is if you connect it indeed with transit, we see that most of these micro mobility users do not come from cars. They are actually replacing walking trips, public transport trips, and cycling. So I think if we want them as part of a solution for our cities, they need to be connected to transit, because that's what you see also in the Netherlands, is that cycling has become such a dominant mode. Because there's such a good intercity public transport system that sort of makes this combination of micromobility and fast transit outcompete any alternative by far on any dimension that you can think of.

00: 29:21

00: So in that sense, I think it's a good marriage to combine them. But again, I would be very hesitant to these kinds of solutions if they take away options that are much more healthy and sustainable and human skilled. Yeah, maybe. If I may add here. So putting micromobility and last mile solutions together as if micromobility is the only solution for last mile.

00: 29:54

00: First and last mile I think is a mistake because where we have the biggest last mile problems is in less dense area. It's not actually where micromobility is used today. So the E Scooters are used in the cities. The sharing schemes actually don't work in the suburbs or in less dense areas because they are not commercially viable yet or might never be. So there we need in those suburban areas, we need different models, different modes.

00: 30:28

00: So we need on demand transport, which is not with Escooters, but it's maybe with Minibuses or maybe in the future we have or today, actually you have Robotaxis, which could complement the public transport system. So really as an integral part of the public transport system. But for this, it needs to be thought as a system, so as a public transport system and use those technologies to improve accessibility to public transport for those people who today are left behind. But to weigh in on this, I think that the Dutch context shows that, again, combined with some proper urban planning, like we started the conversation, but the Dutch context shows that the public transport bicycle, if applied on a systems level and if applied by the government and not by a company, can actually serve the entire population. Because in the Netherlands, 68% of all inhabitants live within a bicycle distance from at least one station.

00: 31:38

00: So I think also there because it's considered the last mile. So let's consider it as one and a half to 2. Really wonder. If you look at whatever country in the European Union, I would think that most people by far live within bicycle distance from a station. So why not go for that low hanging fruit first?

00: 32:01

00: Absolutely. So do one thing, but then also provide some solution for those who cannot cycle or I mean, do not want to cycle for some reason. I think probably 80% 90% of the last mile can be solved with cycling. So I totally agree. But if 10% remains and we're talking about rural areas here, so 10% remains and that 10% uses a car, what's the problem?

00: 32:31

00: Yeah, well, what's the problem? The problem is that today we have this modal conversation. So either you are a car person or you are a bicycle person. So for people to be open for new solutions, we have to think about things that they are easy to buy into.

00: 33:02

00: To make someone in a rural area who doesn't cycle today to come with a cycling solution probably will not work. So then we need to do something that's closer to them, that they will be more familiar with. The car is a perfect solution for those areas where maybe you want to make them electric. I don't know. But I come from a rural area, and I think the car is a perfect fit.

00: 33:30

00: And I think it's actually easier to convince people that not all the cars have to be gone. If only the people that really need it use it, I think 80% of the traffic will evaporate, and that will actually profit the people that actually then still need a car. But how is that inclusive? Marco so if you say, okay, if you are in a rural area, you need to have owned your car, but then there are people who might not be able to afford a car, or it's a big strain for them to actually have a car and to have a solution for those people as well. Yeah, but as I said, I think for the 90% or the 80% that wants to for what reason or not, we can find solutions.

00: 34:14

00: But in the end, it's also I think, again, if I think about my personal context, my family lives in a rural area, and they choose for it to live there. So for those people, I think it's fine if the entire conversation is about, we are not going to take away your car because the car in that context is perfectly fine. But also don't expect that you with the car can go into any city. So you need to find ways to change. But we can also, I think, not.

00: 34:42

00: It feels a bit like we are trying to solve one of the smallest problems with technology that can offer solutions for that. But let's first solve the big problem and then think about that later. It's time for our last question. What are your expectations for the next IAA Mobility, and what are you looking forward to? Well, my expectation is that it becomes even more of a mobility conference, less of a car focused conference or exposition.

00: 35:17

00: So I would like to see more of the topics that were actually on the agenda of this podcast displayed there and have very interesting conversations, and maybe we can continue. Marco in one of the sessions, I don't know what the agenda is exactly of the conference, but no, I mean have more of those really meaningful conversations. Yeah, maybe have also an IAA Proximity Conference or Accessibility conference, because I think it's great that it's moving from the car to be more open to other modes. But still, of course, by definition, any title you choose will limit your thinking. So I think it's even fine to keep this limit, but to also keep discussing how this limit also limits our thinking in terms of solutions and problems.

00: 36:17

00: So try to keep on looking for voices from the outside to challenge the thinking of all the people in the bubble. Powerful insights. That's all the time we have for today, unfortunately. Thank you so much. For being here.

00: 36:36

00: Thank you. Thank you.