For all of us the year 2020 under COVID- 19 pandemic situation is challenging. Indispensable in these times is to intensify our work on mobility behaviour. In particular, we can see even acute needs and higher demand for sustainable and resilient mobility systems. For example, as this was witnessed due to COVID-19 pandemic every day while our life changed drastically: streets were empty, mega-cities were completely quiet and last but not least it also showed which means of transport were more resilient than others.

Recently we held our HUPMOBILE online conference  where we were focusing on “Fusion Mobility” and “Mobility in times of Corona”. In that regard we would also like to take a look back at ESOF 2020 (Euroscience open forum), where Fusion Mobility was defined on a much deeper level.

The EUROSCIENCE Open Forum (ESOF) is the premier European conference on interdisciplinary research, celebrated every second year and highlighting latest developments and achievements in research and best practices from all sciences. In this year’s Trieste (hybrid) edition, 125 sessions were selected from more than 600 applications. The Fusion Mobility session was one of them, outlining and discussing a systemic approach to developing sustainable mobility solutions.

Learning from this most current approach became an opportunity for HUPMOBILE, as HUPMOBILE's objective is “to provide a holistic approach to the planning, implementation, optimisation and management of integrated, sustainable mobility solutions, in particular also to foster the active modes” (in the EU project area described as ‘Baltic Sea port cities’). Fusion Mobility (FM) is about “to provide …” exactly the same objectives.

Thus, following the HUPMOBILE's ambitious goals: What can we learn from each other?

Three steps (1 – 3) of a forward thinking strategy are essential in the concept of Fusion Mobility (FM):

1. Considering all modes, services, supply elements constitutes a holistic collection as a first step towards multimodality. But the “single bricks” do not automatically create a holistic system.
2. Overcoming fragmentation between different modes, services and scenarios, and even deeper fragmentation between analogue and digital worlds. These fragmentations lead to competition and bedevil development of sustainable mobility.
3. Framing all mobility elements by currently 6 FM Building Blocks and facilitating their systemic interactions by prioritizing active modes. This enables real progress in intermodality, risk and opportunity management of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data (i.e. in MaaS).

Practical benefits of FM can be seen in:

• FM can be used as a creativity tool to develop integrated, sustainable mobility solutions.
• FM already is becoming an evaluation tool for sustainable mobility development, as demonstrated at ECOMM 2020 (3^rd and 7^th session).
• FM based investments will constitute added value by anticipating our next decade’s opportunities and risks, in the context of COVID-19 pandemic as a catalyst.
• FM case studies will enable researchers and practitioners forward thinking and acting, offering ways to bring multiple visions into systemic alignment and optimisation.

Presenter of FM was Manfred G. Neun from the Fusion Mobility Memmingen Institute. Manfred is one of the key-figures in FM development, was a keynote speaker at ESOF 2020, and one of seven authors of a Report addressing the European Commission. With 10 colleagues from 7 European countries he recently submitted five FM facets as abstracts to Velo-city 2021, the Lisbon edition.

 

Text by Heike Bunte, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg- Borough of Altona; Manfred G. Neun, Memingen Institute

Cover & in text image by   Manfred G. Neun, Memingen Institute; Giulia Cortesi, Advisor at the Fusion Mobility Memmingen Institute