Abstract
Although the public debate seems to suggest otherwise, environmental issues are not the only concern of sustainability. Sustainable mobility includes affordable access to economic and social opportunities. This paper argues that sustainable transport policies need a balanced approach.
The challenges mobility faces are of a global nature. It would be inappropriate therefore to look at them only from the perspective of a single country. Although this paper uses Germany as a point of reference in a number of cases, it is for the most part based on comparisons between the EU and the United States.
The basic patterns of social behaviour that drive everyday mobility are basically the same in the two regions, what differs are the distances travelled and the average speed at which this happens. What is interesting however is to carry this comparison further by looking at the amount of resources required to produce the transport services society demands.
The paper is divided into three chapters. The first chapter analyses the forces that drive the demand for mobility and takes up some of the sustainability issues mobility faces. The second chapter looks at the impact mobility has on the economy. Using input-output techniques it moves along the supply chain mobility relies upon and identifies the role individual industries play in the production of transport services. It also looks at the degree of their affinity with transport using the share of their mobility-related value-added in their total value-added.
Both, the EU and the United States use about one-fifth of their productive resources to produce transport services. This shows very clearly the economic dimension of mobility. If its sustainability were seriously questioned, this would not just affect peoples lifestyles. The degree to which industry structures would have to adapt would be even greater.
However, the pace of change mobility has experienced over the past 50 years is unlikely to slow down. The third chapter therefore looks to the future. Technologies have not only transformed mobility physically; they have changed its character. If mobility has grown side by side with income, this was because a cluster of value-generating technologies has developed around it, overlaying the act of physical movement. It appears that in the new century mobility will be to a far greater degree integrated with telecommunications and the flow of information. Even today, a growing portion of the value mobility contributes to the GDP has actually to be credited to information and communications technology.
The paper concludes by identifying three major challenges which mobility faces on its way towards greater sustainability: aging societies, dependence on fossil fuels and the spread of congestion. It surmises that the three of them might encourage reliance on intelligent, computer-based transport systems including new, flexible, personalised forms of public transport, that the market for automobiles may partition, based on trip lengths and purposes, and that we may have to change our style of driving.