Ensuring Sustainable Development at the Light of New Mobility Trends and Challenges
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Transportation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2021) | Viewed by 71830
Special Issue Editors
Interests: transport policy and planning; sustainability assessment; infrastructure appraisal; transport economics and financing; governance; public-private partnerships; mobility as a service
Interests: discrete choice modelling, shared mobility, transport economics, forecasting, behavioral economics
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
At present, the world is facing a new mobility paradigm driven by the impact of digitalisation, artificial intelligence, new cleaner energy sources and public health issues caused by the COVD19 pandemic. Those trends are changing the way people work, travel and acquire goods and services. Applications from big data combined with machine learning techniques are contributing to provide more complete information about transport systems, thereby helping public authorities and companies to better plan and program activities, and optimize processes in a much more dynamic way. Information technologies also contribute to a larger integration of different transport means through MaaS (Mobility as a Service) platforms that offer intermodal transport alternatives customized according to the preferences of the users (price, comfort, reliability, health, etc.). New energy sources are also gaining momentum. The improvement of batteries and the promotion of electro mobility, along with the growth of alternative fuels would likely reduce the weight that fossil fuels have traditionally played to power transport means. In addition, the COVID19 pandemic has brought about a new mobility scenario where public health issues and social distancing become key challenges of transport policy and planning. The pandemic is also accelerating new lifestyles. Teleworking is booming, while e-commerce is growing given the reluctance of many people to acquire products using traditional approaches.
Moreover, the fight against climate change poses crucial challenges in the coming years. On the one hand, governments will have to adopt measures to enhance cleaner mobility, or even reduce mobility. On the other hand, additional funding may be necessary to make infrastructure resilient to climate change, or to repair the consequences of extraordinary events caused by climatic hazards. In addition, moving towards a more sustainable mobility that minimizes its impact on the environment and biodiversity also implies great efforts related to energy production by renewable means, the deployment of more sustainable fuels and engines, the implementation of circular economy approaches across the life cycle of transport-related products and services, etc.
All these changes draw an uncertain future. In fact, in its latest Transport Outlook, the International Transport Forum mentions that: “uncertainties abound regarding travel behaviour and mobility patterns as well as technological progress and innovations. The sheer multitude of variables and the enormous scope of increasingly fast-paced and disruptive change render the future of transport ever more difficult to foretell”.
The irruption of many new trends, along with the uncertainty associated with their future uptake, will necessarily imply the adoption of policy and regulatory measures aimed at safeguarding sustainable development. Mobility after COVID19 also faces important issues. On the one hand, the pandemic is changing traditional social habits of work, leisure and commerce. On the other hand, it requires safeguarding health in the use of public transportation means, while planners should strive to avoid a massive shift towards the use of private vehicles that may prompt higher social and environmental costs to the society.
This Special Issue is calling for papers providing high-quality research on the potential impacts that new mobility paradigms are expected to have on the three pillars of sustainability (economic, social and environmental). We are also interested in papers dealing with policy and regulatory measures, already implemented or proposed for the future, that will contribute to align new mobility trends with sustainable development goals.
Dr. José Manuel Vassallo
Dr. Juan Gómez
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- transport policy
- mobility decoupling
- sustainable development
- regulation
- governance
- transport externalities
- automation and connectivity
- clean power sources
- sharing economy
- shared mobility
- mobility as a Service
- teleworking
- e-commerce.
- COVID 19
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