Towards Mobility 4.0
A new definition for an established sector
Mobility is indispensable in our lives. We rely on it daily to get to work, meet with friends and family, or receive a package. The systems that power mobility form the backbone of our economy. They’re essential and they’re immense. At the same time, they are far from optimized.
Urban areas are flooded with traffic because options between mass and personalized transport are limited. Supply chains are broken and inefficient because data processes are siloed and intransparent. Manufacturers are forced to respond with drastic measures to maintain production in response to supply chain shocks.
These are but a few examples of the challenges we currently face. How do we solve them? We must start by redefining mobility. As such, we’re introducing Mobility 4.0. In this article, we will lay out the definition of Mobility 4.0 and explain our rationale behind its component parts. Armed with this new definition, we can reframe these challenges, envision new solutions, and strategize how to solve them together.
Mobility 4.0 — A New Definition
Are we ready for Mobility 4.0?
Ready or not, Mobility 4.0 has arrived. Previous innovations in the mobility sector, like the steam or combustion engine, were iterative, gradually making personal mobility more accessible, cutting supply chain costs and “flattening” the world. Connectivity and digitalization are disruptive innovations and will open up entirely new opportunities at the infrastructure, intermediate technology, and business model level.
For personal mobility, they unlock modes between mass and individual transport. In logistics, data sharing capabilities increase the availability and use of real-time data along complex supply chains. The result will be companies that differ from those formed in the midst of previous mobility revolutions. This environment presents a unique opportunity to shift paradigms, find new solutions and redefine mobility. Yet for Mobility 4.0 to achieve its potential a thorough understanding of the key trends, a clear definition of what mobility is today and will be in the future, and the future value drivers and vectors of change is required.
Mobility 4.0 will shape and be shaped by large-scale trends
Transport systems are complex. This complexity exposes them to various, often highly local, influences and restrictions too numerous to detail. Nevertheless, there are certain macro trends that are applicable across the Western world. They drive decision making today and their impact will only increase going forward. To derive a new definition, we must begin with these trends:
Companies that can provide mass individualization in their product and service line will have a distinct competitive advantage over those that do not. This is a trend driving strategy in a variety of industries and we are starting to see its effects in the ride hailing, shared services and micromobility industries. How can we individualize without fragmenting transport systems? How can we reflect personal preferences without diversifying to a point where we reach a system overload? How to decide what options to introduce and which to avoid?
More people in cities mean more traffic driven by daily commutes, service providers, and a constant stream of more and more delivery drivers zigzagging through urban centers around the globe. Over the past decade there have been three main drivers to this trend: people continuing to move into cities from the countryside, people abandoning smaller cities in favor of larger metropoles, and the continued rise of housing prices in city centers close to where most jobs are located, pushing workers into the suburbs and onto a commuter schedule. The result is congestion. How can we redesign transport options so they reflect the changing needs of the urban population? What role will public-private partnerships play in the urban environments of the future?
Climate change is one of the fundamental challenges of the next decade. We know fossil fuel-based transportation is responsible for a good chunk of carbon emissions. We also know that a reduction of carbon emissions is a principled and achievable goal for the long term health of our economies and our planet. The trend of considering the sources of both direct and indirect emissions — inclusive of supply chains, raw material usage, and mobility-focused industrial output — is a hopeful one for both positive impact and tremendous innovation throughout the mobility sector.
Redefining Mobility
Only when considering both the challenges and opportunities looming on the horizon can we achieve clarity: to keep the world moving, we have to redefine the way we move. We must widen our understanding of mobility and what it means. Modern transport and logistics systems will not be limited to what we currently imagine; they will require the implementation of multiple disciplines across various dimensions.
Mobility is more than people and goods
Macro trends and large-scale changes around transport systems show it is necessary to broaden the definition of mobility. Exclusively focusing on the movement of people and goods will only aggravate current challenges. Therefore, we not only have to reconsider movement itself, but also how we can streamline movement.
Examples include more efficient routing, pooling of resources, and other ways to optimize transportation. Limiting access of delivery vans to crowded city centers to times with low traffic volumes could be a way. The same goes for pooling deliveries from different logistics providers, or delivering to dedicated packing stations.
However, such initiatives require data to succeed. Collecting and analyzing data on traffic volume, individual preferences, routing etc. is the prerequisite to optimize existing offerings, but also to develop successful new ones, in line with customer requirements and the overall industry environment. Therefore, data is an essential part of new mobility.
Beyond that, the ongoing electrification of mobility requires a resilient energy grid that can cope with diverse, distributed energy demands. The grid of the future will power a plethora of mobility options, but is not yet equipped to do so. Charging infrastructure is only a fracture of what is needed to support an electrified automotive sector at scale. At the same time, fully electric mobility would exceed current power supplies, renewable energy sources do not currently provide the requisite density and synthetic fuels or hydrogen are not yet an option outside of distinct geospatials. These are all challenges associated with electric mobility, but they underscore the importance of understanding energy to understand the future of mobility.
Mobility is not restricted to land, air & sea
Land, air and sea will remain the most important playing fields of mobility. However, a fourth “dimension” — space — should not be neglected. For once, mobility and space are inextricably linked by the GPS satellites that provide navigation. But with mobility becoming more data-heavy, space will play an ever increasing role. SpaceX pursuing Starlink with full force is one example, but also global navigation systems will heavily rely on satellites, and the importance of systems of this type will only grow. This sub-sector is ready for launch (pun intended).
But also land, air and sea leave vast room to innovate. On land, it is still a long way to exhaust the full potential of autonomous vehicles, hyperloop, seamless logistics, robotic manufacturing and assembly and warehouse automation. In the air, drones are just taking off (pun also intended), with huge impacts on logistics and personal travel. And who seriously believes cruise ships, container vessels and private yachts are immune to the wave (so many good puns!) of innovation that Mobility 4.0 will bring?
So in summation:
A definition for Mobility 4.0
What’s next?
A thorough understanding of important trends and an up-to-date definition of the sector in question is a good primer. But it does not tell us anything about how we can make the transition towards Mobility 4.0. In our next article, we will look at the value drivers which we expect to dominate mobility over the next decades. We will also look at vectors of change, along which we expect the transformation to unfold.
By Christian Saur.
Thanks to Alessa Schuhmacher, Brian Hotani and Newton Davis for contributing to this story.
