The technological changes associated with mobility\u2019s \u201csecond great inflection point\u201d create myriad opportunities for cities to address these challenges. As ridesharing grows up, digital vehicle connectivity deepens, electric vehicles (EVs) become mainstream, and autonomous vehicles (AVs) take hold (see \u201cThe trends transforming mobility\u2019s future\u201d), it becomes possible to envision a future of \u201cseamless mobility.\u201d In such an environment, the boundaries among private, shared, and public transport would be blurred, and travelers would have a variety of clean, cheap, and flexible ways to get from point A to point B. Our analysis suggests that seamless mobility could be cleaner, more convenient, and more efficient than the status quo, accommodating up to 30 percent more traffic while cutting travel time by 10 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today\u2019s reality, though, is far from seamless. Vehicles that are fully autonomous do not yet exist in meaningful numbers, EVs still make up only a small percentage of the global vehicle fleet, and traditional internal-combustion-engine (ICE) cars represent about 40 percent of passenger-kilometers\u2014often more than rail and bus services combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starting from this baseline, urban-mobility systems in dense, developed cities, such as London, New York, and Seoul, could evolve in a variety of ways over the next dozen years. This article describes three potential scenarios and details how public- and private-sector leaders can forge a strategy to make seamless mobility happen. For city planners and other urban-mobility specialists, we have also prepared a longer report, An integrated perspective on the future of mobility, part 3: Setting the direction toward seamless mobility (PDF\u20134.5MB).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three scenarios<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To develop a perspective on the future, we modeled a set of short (fewer than two kilometers), medium (two to ten kilometers), and long (more than ten kilometers) trips, differentiating between trips within the city business district and trips to and from the city and the suburbs. We also simulated the trade-offs that people make\u2014for instance, deciding between a more convenient but pricier autonomous shuttle and a less convenient but cheaper bus\u2014and estimated how these decisions could affect congestion in 2030. Finally, we accounted for \u201cinduced travel\u201d\u2014the concept that when it is easier or cheaper to travel, demand tends to rise. This analysis shows that seamless mobility holds many advantages, but achieving it is far from a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scenario 1: Business-as-usual urbanization<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine a world in which population growth continued, but large cities managed their transport systems largely as they do today, with little innovation in pricing or policy. Imagine further that complicated traffic patterns, setbacks in technology development, and delays in consumer adoption deterred the large-scale deployment of AVs, and that vehicles did not electrify in large numbers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In our analysis of such a model, the results are discouraging. Transport demand would increase in line with population growth (about 15 percent by 2030), and greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions could rise proportionally. City dwellers would travel in mostly the same ways as they do now, and private cars would continue to account for about 35 percent of passenger-kilometers. Average travel times would increase by 15 percent because capacity would be strained. In the United States, without substantial change, this is the likely scenario: few cities, even the largest, have comprehensive plans that consider new and forthcoming technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scenario 2: Unconstrained autonomy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now consider an alternative future in which autonomous-driving technology advances, but regulators and city governments don\u2019t keep up. In other words, what if autonomous-transportation options follow in the footsteps of bikesharing programs and e-hailing, which hit the roads faster than the policies needed to guide them did?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s certainly plausible. By 2030, shared AVs\u2014or robo-taxis\u2014could navigate to, from, and within a central business district. Our analysis suggests that, at that point, they could become an attractive alternative to private-vehicle ownership, with the cost per mile of riding in a robo-taxi running about the same as the cost of owning a moderately priced private vehicle, and that travelers could adopt them for individual or shared use for about 35 percent of their travel by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compared with the first scenario, this one has clear advantages. The partial displacement of fixed-route buses by robo-taxis with flexible routing would increase the share of point-to-point trips, reducing waiting and walking times between transfers. If the robo-taxis were electric, GHG emissions would fall and air quality improve. Congestion, however, will not improve compared with the baseline, and it could get worse. The average time for a private car trip could increase as an increased convenience of robo-taxis draws more users onto the roads. Other travelers, anxious to avoid the crowded roads, could pack into trains. In all, we estimate that average travel times would be 15 percent higher compared with today\u2019s baseline scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scenario 3: Seamless mobility<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now for a third possibility: What if cities encourage the use of shared AVs through regulation and incentives? That would make it possible for residents to \u201cmix and match\u201d rail transit and low-cost, point-to-point autonomous travel in robo-taxis, autonomous shuttles, and autonomous buses easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our analysis suggests that pooled AV shuttles could grab 25 percent of the market (twice as much as in the unconstrained-autonomy scenario), and private cars and privately used robo-taxis could provide about 30 percent of passenger-kilometers in 2030, compared with 35 percent for private cars today (Exhibit 1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not just autonomous vehicles that would make the difference. Intelligent traffic systems, advanced rail signaling, and connectivity-enabled predictive maintenance would all boost network reliability. Seamless mobility could improve performance on all five indicators that characterize a transit system: availability, affordability, efficiency, convenience, and sustainability. It could accommodate up to 30 percent more passenger-kilometers (availability) while reducing average time per trip by 10 percent (efficiency). It could cost 25 to 35 percent less per trip (affordability), increase the number of point-to-point trips by 50 percent (convenience), and, if AVs are electric, lower GHG emissions by up to 85 percent (sustainability).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Setting the direction toward seamless mobility<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The dramatic differences in outcomes associated with these scenarios (Exhibit 2) mean that cities, the companies operating in them, and their citizens face critical choices. Logistics costs, employee productivity, and the day-to-day life experiences of urban employees and customers are all on the line. To get to seamless mobility\u2014the most attractive but also the most complex end-state\u2014cities must do three things well: optimize supply, optimize demand, and improve sustainability. Here\u2019s a short list of urban transit priorities worth paying attention to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exhibit 2<\/p>\n\n\n\n Supply: Capacity utilization<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Cities can enhance supply the traditional (and expensive) way\u2014by building more roads, bridges, rail lines, and other infrastructure. But they can also do so by using their existing assets more intensively. Here are some tools they can deploy to do the latter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Demand: From private to shared modes of travel<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Increasing supply alone won\u2019t achieve seamless mobility. Encouraging people to shift to a widening array of shared-transportation options and moving some traffic to off-peak hours are also critical pieces of the puzzle. If people move away from driving themselves to using rail, bus, or autonomous shuttles, existing infrastructure can carry more passengers without increasing congestion\u2014and maybe reducing it. Demand-optimization tools include the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nighttime is the right time: Transporting goods accounts for around 20 percent of congestion. In New York, night deliveries move around 25 percent of delivery traffic out of peak hours.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sustainability: Congestion and air quality<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Even with seamless mobility, roads would continue carrying the largest percentage of passengers and a healthy volume of freight. Improving air quality and reducing GHG emissions, therefore, means dealing with the vehicles that move on those roads. EV emissions fall sharply when they are charged with low- or no-emissions sources; they are therefore a critical part of the equation. One tool that cities can use to encourage the use of EVs is the creation of low- or zero-emissions zones. Another is to promote the electrification of shared, fleet, and government vehicles, which are used more intensively. Amsterdam has already made special citywide parking permits available for electric-car-sharing fleets, and Los Angeles International Airport recently purchased electric buses for its operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In our view of a seamless-mobility world, all robo-taxis and autonomous shuttles would be electric and charged by no-emissions sources by 2030. This may appear ambitious, given the baseline. Even in China, the world leader in EVs, only 30 percent of buses sold in 2016 were electric. As for cars, electric versions account for a tiny share of the global market, largely because of concerns about cost and range. However, because robo-taxis and autonomous shuttles are likely to be used more intensively and frequently as part of fleets, the total cost of ownership of an EV could become competitive with that of an ICE vehicle by the mid-2020s. A possible dream<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Achieving seamless mobility won\u2019t be easy, but it\u2019s not a pipe dream, because the advantages associated with it are so clear. Moreover, seamless mobility could create significant business opportunities. Our analysis suggests that by 2030, 40 percent of the transportation-revenue pool\u2014the money that residents in dense, developed cities like New York, Paris, and Tokyo spend on transit\u2014could be served by modes of transport (particularly autonomous shuttles, robo-taxis, and those using logistics approaches) that don\u2019t even exist now. Seamless mobility may require new kinds of assets, such as storage and maintenance facilities for shared autonomous fleets, fast-charging infrastructure, and dedicated AV lanes equipped with vehicle-to-infrastructure communications and IT systems. All of this represents a significant new area of opportunity for infrastructure companies to design, build, and operate in and for new forms of public\u2013private partnerships. Seamless mobility is only achievable if cities tap into the private sector\u2019s capabilities, business models, innovations, and technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, the past offers hope. Cities have reimagined transport before and did what was necessary to improve the mobility, and thus the lives, of their people. Go back to that first underground railway: London not only permitted eight years of construction through one of the most crowded districts in the city, but it also established a public\u2013private partnership and invested \u00a3200,000 in what was then a highly experimental project. \u201cThose who devised and carried out this undertaking would be entitled to the highest praise and gratitude of the people,\u201d noted one speaker at the ceremony to commemorate the opening. \u201cThis line was not only an honor to the country but a solid advance in civilization.\u201d True enough then\u2014and, perhaps, it will be true again in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About the author(s)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric Hannon<\/a>is a partner in McKinsey\u2019s Frankfurt office, Stefan Knupfer<\/a>is a senior partner in the Stamford office, Sebastian Stern is a senior partner in the Hamburg office, and Jan Tijs Nijssen is an associate partner in the Amsterdam office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The authors wish to thank Julian Albert, Neeraj Huddar, Maite Pena Alcaraz, Swarna Ramanathan, and Ben Sumers for their contributions to this article. Will the coming mobility revolution make urban traffic better, or worse? The age of modern transit began in 1863, when the first underground railway began rolling in central London. The line was short and smoky, and nothing like it had ever been seen before. But it worked, and cities around the world began to follow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16],"tags":[45,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25242"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25252,"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25242\/revisions\/25252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wealinternational.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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