Is the Future of Mobility the Past?

The restrictions associated with the Corona pandemic have suddenly changed the behavior of traffic participants. As a result, significant numbers of people have taken to cycling and walking. Public transport, on the other hand, is in crisis. The need for social distance and hygiene makes collective means of transportation unappealing, and the demand for car-sharing services has dropped significantly. At the same time, the private car is experiencing a renaissance.

What can we learn from people's changed habits regarding transportation? How do the contradictory effects influence the necessary transformation? Which of the effects are short-term and which ones will become the "new normal"? At the discussion event, we presented insights from traffic behavior research, talked about the opportunities and problems of digitization and drew conclusions from the new experiences: What has to happen now? What are the decisions that will have to be made and by whom?

The event took place in a digital setting and was recorded.

This event is a part of the Ecornet Future Forum (Zukunftsforum Ecornet) event series. The event "Is the Future of Mobility the Past?" contributes to this discussion with information from current scientific analyses while creating a framework for political exchange.

About the event series Zukunftsforum Ecornet

Future: The term "Future" has long become a central concept in environmental and sustainability policy debates. Whereas in the past threat scenarios dominated the debate, today the focus is increasingly on the possibilities for shaping the future: What kind of world do we want to make possible for present and future generations?

Forum: Shaping an ecologically sustainable and socially equitable future can only succeed through conversations between politics, science, business and civil society. Ecornet aims to bring together the various actors and offer them a forum for jointly tackling the social problems of our time.

Ecornet: Concrete social problems require concrete proposals for solutions. Ecornet aims to help shape social change towards sustainability and to provide the required scientific basis for this purpose. With thematic and methodological diversity and work at the interfaces between science and society, the eight Ecornet institutes provide answers to the pressing questions of our time.