INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Green Technology
Research finds huge
sustainability from ICT
urban mobility models
N
ew concepts in personal
transport built on digital
technologies could reduce
the amount of cars needed on urban
roads globally by up to 20 million
vehicles per year in 2025, offering
huge sustainability benefits and an
improved experience for travellers.
These are some of the key findings of
new research published today by BT and
Frost & Sullivan.
The research, “Environmentally
Sustainable Innovation in Automotive
Manufacturing and Urban Mobility”,
suggests that consumer trends
towards ‘on demand’ access rather
than product ownership is prompting
car manufacturers to consider rideon-demand business models. When
combined with the integration of smart
vehicles and smart roads and cities,
all connected, these business models
will lead to fewer and more efficient
journeys, reducing journeys in private
cars overall by 360 billion kilometres per
year within the next decade.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
These developments stand to reduce
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by
56 megatonnes per year in 2025.
That is an amount equivalent to
more than half the yearly emissions
from transport in the UK. A further
reduction of 121 megatonnes of CO2
equivalent emissions could be achieved
by automotive companies due to the
reduction of the global car output by 20
million vehicles per year.
By introducing sustainable production
methods, including lightweight
materials, expanding the use
remanufactured parts and better
integrated supply chains, the embodied
carbon impact could be reduced
by another 89 megatonnes of CO2
equivalent in 2025.
solutions, connected parking solutions,
and integrated mobility services,
technology is playing a critical role in
carving out new urban mobility solutions
that are rapidly moving from niche to
mainstream transportation options.
These new personal mobility services all
require highly connected IT solutions
with access to real-time data.
The research suggests that this new
era of mobility business models has a
user-centric, service-led approach to
delivery and is leading to a potential
shift away from car ownership to the
use of mobility services in several cases.
Through smartphone-based on-demand
Ridesharing platforms that facilitate
spontaneous use of spare capacities
in private cars could bring a reduction
of 40 billion kilometres travelled, which
would generate savings of £15 billion
for users and reduce carbon emissions
by five megatonnes.
According to the study, smart
parking solutions, using a connected
infrastructure of sensors that draws on
numerous data sources in real time to
allow the most efficient routes to vacant
parking spaces to be calculated, could
deliver £49 billion in productivity and
fuel savings and reduce yearly carbon
emissions by 23 megatonnes in 2025.
www.intelligentcio.com