Future of Mobility

Sri Krishnan V, Vice President, Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Limited delivered the keynote address during the session “New Mobility” at TrafficInfraTech Expo 2015. He touched upon the mega trends and developments in traffic that will influence the future of mobility.

Mega trends and their impact on the future of mobility

Urbanization is now becoming hyperurbanization with more than 50% of the world’s population living in cities. The figure is expected to touch >70% in the next three decades. Since everybody wants to commute, this poses a lot of challenges for transport planners and authorities.

A second interesting trend is the changing generation view. Individuals from Generation Z will become drivers soon. Their views on driving and use of vehicles seem to be completely different from that of the current generation. For example: They are just concerned about getting from point A to B, not about how they go about it, what car they will be using, etc. They prefer to use shared transportation and public transportation as much as possible with convenience being of prime importance, rather than driving by self.

The next generations’ view on transportation and mobility holds a lot of significance for the industry since they are not so interested in driving and are focussed on mobility. If the automobile industry thinks that its function is to transport people by means of vehicles then the future looks unpredictable and not very bright. But if it thinks that its function is mobility, it can produce a lot of innovative products through public-private participation, shared cars, etc.A third wellknown trend is “the connected vehicle” trend. Even in India, all vehicles are now connected, either through a smart phone or through some navigation device inside the car. Connectivity can be vehicle-tovehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure. And that brings the phenomenon of “digital exhaust” into the picture. The term aptly indicates the volume of data a vehicle will produce and new service opportunities that will emerge around mobility.

If the automobile industry thinks that its function is to transport people by means of vehicles then the future looks unpredictable and not very bright. But if it thinks that its function is mobility, it can produce a lot of innovative products through public-private participation, shared cars, etc.

A fourth trend is the convergence between public and private transport. Multimodal transport systems are being used on an increasingly larger scale, with commuters using interchangeable modes of transport to complete their journey. Thus it is becoming difficult to separate private and public transport.

The ageing population of countries such as Japan and Western Europe is driving the adoption of innovative driver assistance functions. These programmes enable people with lesser vision and lesser reaction time to drive safely by making the vehicles more autonomous.

Bosch has transformed these trends into four fields of action: safety for everyone, comfort and assistance during driving to make a more pleasurable drive, personalization and clean technology.