Increasing impact of advance technologies on mobility

From ScenarioThinking

Description:

Mobility is a state of motion which has a great impact on human well being. In general humans have to move around to feel free and give sense to life. If we look at the Netherlands specific it can be noticed that in average every Dutch person makes three trips a day. Since 1985 the mobility in the Netherlands has increase with 40%. The growth lays in the fact that the travel distances has grown. Advance technologies has contributed to this as they created over time more comfort to travel. Now a day, a car contains more technology than the first space shuttle flight to the moon. Advance technologies made it safer to travel and supply the travellers with traffic information. Furthermore advance technologies is the driving force behind the applications that range from location based search, navigation, communication and data transfer and more.

New developments in the car industry will made it even technical possible in the near future for cars to communicate between themselves without interference of human beings. This will enable a wide range of possibilities like cars who will drive without human driver which will make it possible to decrease the distance between the cars and increase the throughput on the highways.

Also in the public transport, advance technologies has increased service levels and decreased the delays in travel

Enablers:

• Reduction in distance between cars

• Travel time has become shorter

• On time delivery due traffic information system

• Never lost due Global Position System

• Safer to travel thanks to collision sensors in vehicle and airbags

• Virtual office space makes it unnecessary to work from the office

• More efficient travelling and communication

Inhibitors:

• Ethical issues (people dont want to be always traceable

• Technological fear

• Too much information will disable clear communication due complexity

Paradigms:

The increase of advance technologies has and will have more influence on the way peoples mobility. As traffic congestions are increasing it can be imagined that over a few years most people will work from their residence and will only travel to work if necessary. Advance technologies cannot stop the congestion on the roads. However with introduction of more advance technologies it will be possible to travel in lighter and electrical vehicles which are more environmental friendly than the vehicles in use at the moment.

An increase of advance technologies has an effect on the social pattern of humans as these technologies makes people more individualistic which brings risks of social isolation.