How Can Modern Cities Manage Smart Mobility?
The Smart City Expo World Congress is a global meeting point for everyone with a stake in the future of urban living and development, from world leaders, to technologists to civil engineers. With more than 21.000 attendees from 700 cities, the Congress has cemented itself as the largest and most influential smart city event in the world. This year’s 8th edition of the event, held annually in Barcelona, had one core theme: Building Cities To Live In.
Over 400 speakers delivered keynotes, panels and presentations around 5 key content tracks: Mobility, Digital Transformation, Urban Environment, Governance & Finance, and Inclusive & Sharing Cities. Among the events on offer was an eye-opening panel discussion on the need to develop flexible and integrated public transport systems that meet the needs of our citizens. The panel, hosted by Julio Gomez Pomar, Chairman of IE Business School, featured 4 diverse stakeholders in the smart city economy:
· Mohammad Asim Khan – Mayor of Peshawar, Pakistan · Dr. Amit Gumar Jain (@railMinIndia) – Head of India Railways, New Dehli, India · Dr. Ignasi Vilajosana (@ivilajosana) – Founder & CEO of Worldsensing · Alvaro Urech (@ureche) – Innovation Manager at Alstom
Mohammad Asim Khan, the Mayor of Peshawar showcased how the state of transportation in the oldest living city in the region – over 5.000 years old – is faring in the age of urbanism. With 4.3 million residents, the city’s biggest challenge is how to accommodate daily commuters, whilst also stemming the effects of the pollution that they cause. To meet demand, Peshawar developed the Gold Standard System as the means of communication and smart mobility. With more than 1.200 buses already activated in the Smart Bus Transport System, the project is nearly 90% complete. However, as Khan illustrated, they’re still implementing an AI infrastructure that will continue to optimize operations for years to come.
Across the border, Dr. Jain from New Delhi explained how his city is facing similar challenges when it comes to developing their new railway system. Its public transport network squeezes more than 8 passengers per square meter on their trains during peak hours – that’s approximately 55.000 passengers per hour, per direction, every work day.
Rather than focusing on supply, which requires major capital investment, New Delhi prioritizes demand management. The first element of demand management is charging higher fares during peak hours to incentivize people to seek alternative transportation options such as carsharing or biking. A more controversial solution posed for high demand management was encouraging professionals to leverage remote work technologies and work from home, thus reducing the numbers of people making the commute to work each day.
