Frost & Sullivan's Urban Mobility 3.0: Companies Have to Innovate to Remain Part of the Future of Mobility

LONDON, June 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 160 senior delegates from the Automotive and Transportation industry came together on Wednesday and Thursday last week to present, discuss and invent the future of mobility during Frost & Sullivan's interactive workshop Urban Mobility 3.0: New Urban Mobility Business Models (www.urbanmobility.gilcommunity.com). The two-day event summarised the current and future developments in the industry and highlighted new and innovative mobility concepts. 

Frost & Sullivan Partner and Global Practice Director, Sarwant Singh, opened the debate at the House of Commons in London, complimenting various stakeholders in the mobility space as 'understanding future mobility needs of customers'. He urged companies to analyse the new mega trends impacting mobility across the diverse industry value chain, by saying, "Mega trends like Urbanisation, Connectivity and eCommerce are creating new opportunities, for example smart parking management solutions for OEMs and home delivery for logistics companies thereby boosting demand for light commercial vehicles." He further stated that, "the concepts of car ownership, car retailing and in-car technology are in a process of complete transformation, and vehicle manufacturers will have to keep abreast with all new developments."

"Few markets in the world will see so drastic a change as the mobility market ... as user numbers will double or triple," said Robert Henrich, CEO of car2go, while BMW's Senior Vice President, Markus Schramm, explained: "traditional lines between public and private transport will disappear, [as can be seen] with car sharing ... for highly multimodal mobility consumers, who use own cars and car sharing." He believed, that there are "hundreds more mobility related startups to come."

According to Lucinda Turner from Transport for London, they "want to promote modal shift, but it's not anti-car or ideological." Demand for travel is increasing significantly and while a shift of 9 per cent of travelers away from the car to other modes such as cycling and public transport has been achieved over the last decade, with investments in infrastructure and the congestion charge in particular, more investments have to be made in roads, as congestion has risen by 10 per cent over the last decade, she summarised.

Other topical highlights included the tipping point for the population to give up car ownership, the possibility of door-to-door connectivity with regard to rail and various other public transport modes, the impact of urban logistics threatening road traffic congestion to further increase substantially, as well as the importance of connectivity and artificial intelligence for cars. According to Fast Future CEO, Rohit Talwar, the latter is "coming rapidly. Our cars (will) become communication hubs assessing traffic and cars on other streets – communicating with each other."

Following the debate at the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday, industry innovators gathered to receive and celebrate awards for delivering excellence in best practices across the entire industry value chain. Award recipients were honoured for developing new business concepts, leadership as well as innovative mobility strategies. 

Mr Singh explained: "We are proud to honour the achievements of organisations like BMW, Harman and many others who have led from the front in bringing new products and innovations to market within the mobility space."

Concluding the event delegates as well as panelists gave very positive feedback which is summarised in the statement of a delegate: "You ... at Frost & Sullivan don't follow or assess a present market, you ... create new markets." 

Frost & Sullivan's annual event Urban Mobility 3.0 has taken place for the fifth time since 2009. What started off as a two-day workshop on the impact of Electric Vehicles on the future of the Automotive industry, has developed into an interactive 360 degree industry debate, pronouncing future trends, that will shape or break the future of new mobility concepts. Bringing together government, the public sector as well as industry corporations and academic institutions, the two-day event held in London has established itself as a unique and unmissable benchmark in the automotive and transportation sector.

For more information about Frost & Sullivan's Automotive & Transportation programme, please send an e-mail to Katja Feick, Corporate Communications, at [email protected].

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