Frost & Sullivan: Consumer Behaviour to Impact Future Infrastructure for a Sustainable Urban Mobility

LONDON, June 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Urban Mobility is at the heart of the development of economic growth, environmental sustainability and social planning for future mega city and urban populations. Investment in the development of future infrastructure technologies should therefore be seen as part of a social revolution rather than just an evolution of existing transport forms. Different solutions will be applied to a wide variety of needs ranging from the mobilisation for developing countries to re-investment in failing infrastructure in developed economies.

Infrastructure Trends for Mobility were one of the themes at Frost & Sullivan's industry gathering 'Urban Mobility 3.0: OEMs New Mobility Offerings and New Business Models Linking Web 2.0', taking place at the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) in London today. This year's two-day industry event brought together more than 130 top executives of almost all the major car manufacturers with representatives from the public sector and academia to address key questions on the future of mobility and transport. The aim was to provide insight and guidance to policy and decision makers in all areas of government, academia and industry.

The congress was opened by Frost & Sullivan Partner, Dorman Followwill, followed by a scene-setting presentation on the 'Future of Mobility' by Frost & Sullivan Partner and Automotive Practice Director, Sarwant Singh. The importance of cooperation between government and industry was highlighted with clear opportunities for innovation by transport integrators being identified.    

"However rational proposed infrastructure solutions are, they also have to provide a compelling proposition to the public who will use them, otherwise they will fail," said Frost & Sullivan Senior Consultant, Nick Ford. "Unless they provide a clear benefit in terms of convenience of use, people will continue to favour existing forms of personal transport".

"Sustainable Urban Mobility is all about changing behaviour through providing choice; choice to the travellers as to the method and time they make their journey or choice for businesses and freight operators about how they make their delivery," continued Theo Quick, Global Head of Intelligent Transport Systems Practice of Logica UK. "Data is key to this and trends such as co-operative systems and connected vehicles will provide greater level of data from which more information can be derived. This will enable citizens and businesses to make more active choices".

As the process of urbanisation and cities growing into megacities and mega regions is proceeding, the focus of car manufacturers as well as transport operators is on the city as the test laboratory for sustainable mobility and innovative transport solutions.

"When deciding how to tackle the capacity and environmental impact of increasing demand for mobility, it's clear that we must focus on the cities," emphasized Mr. Gordon Wakeford, Managing Director of Siemens Infrastructure & Cities UK. "Transport problems in cities can only be solved by visionaries who are willing to invest in both infrastructure and innovation."

Panel discussions during today's Frost & Sullivan annual industry event 'Urban Mobility 3.0: OEMs New Mobility Offerings and New Business Models Linking Web 2.0' focused on Mega Trends impacting mobility, new mobility business models, governments' visions for a future of inter modal and multi modal transportation as well as future infrastructure trends for mobility. Participating panellists included representatives from ALD International, BMW AG, the BBC, Daimler-Car2go, Cisco, City Car Club, Ecomobilite Ventures, the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Urban Development, IBM Institute for Business Value, Karsan, Logica, Mobius Motors as well as Adam Opel/Vauxhall, OLEV, Siemens Infrastructure & Cities UK, Technology Strategy Board, Transport Knowledge Transfer Network, the University of Cambridge, Veolia Transdev and Zipcar Europe.

The expert gathering was preceded by a panel debate at the House of Lords yesterday afternoon, focusing on the question: 'Personal or Public? Urban Mobility in a Low Carbon World'.

For more background information on the event, visit: www.gil-global.com/urbanmobility or contact Katja Feick, Corporate Communications, at [email protected].

Official Sponsors of this year's 'Urban Mobility 3.0' are Karsan, Siemens, BMWi, Daimler FleetBoard GmbH.

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Corporate Communications – Europe
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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan