Prospects and Challenges for Urban Mobility

Abstract

Due to the intensified urbanization trend over the last decades, role of urban mobility is becoming more and more important on the way towards more sustainable transport system. Currently, urban mobility is responsible for about 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions from passenger transport, where passenger cars are still major contributor to the emissions in cities and the largest challenge for the decarbonisation of urban mobility. In a business-as-usual scenario these emissions could double up to 2050. However, such development should be avoided and many cities and governments have provided wide portfolio of measures which should make cities more sustainable and resilient. On the one hand, it is important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution caused by mobility. To reach this, different supporting measures are provided for low or zero carbon vehicles. On the other hand, due to challenges caused by COVID-crisis as well as climate change, it is very important to increase resilience of urban mobility by diversifying transport modes used as well as energy sources used for mobility. The core objective of this paper is to analyse and discussed urban mobility in different types of urban areas depending on population density and development of public transport. Moreover, impact of COVID-crisis on mobility as well as response of different cities are presented and discussed. A scenario analysis is provided on the example of the city of Vienna. Emissions from urban passenger mobility could be significantly cut by 2050 if more ambitious actions are taken and significant shift from conventional passenger cars toward more efficient automotive technologies and transport modes is realized. One of the priorities should be better urban development and spatial planning which could contribute to the reduction of unnecessary trips. Moreover, it is essential to reduce dependency on cars in cities by improvement of public transport as well as by enabling possibilities for safe active (non-motorized) mobility. Some very good examples for this have been provided during the first year of the COVID-crisis, e.g. Paris and Brussels. How fast the progress towards the decarbonization of urban passenger transport will be, is very dependent on the economic development, environmental pressure, and social acceptance for the changes in the mobility patterns, as well as on clear and consequent policy frameworks on the different levels – EU, national and local level.