STREETSMART - building technology by listening to the cityBy 2050 UN projects that the world’s population will have increased from 7.6 to 9.8 billion people. This growth will primarily be handled by cities as the same projections estimate that urban dwellers will grow from 55% to 68%.

Cities are running out of space and current transportation systems are already at max capacity. So-called ride sharing ended up bringing more cars to the street, and most studies show that autonomous vehicles will further increase congestion for multiple years.

In consequence a lot of attention and investments are now being directed towards the idea of micromobility as a critical part of the urban eco system. Small, shared vehicles (i.e. bikes and electrical kick-scooters) with zero emissions, low weight and small footprint.

This lecture will primarily explore how we can understand micromobility and the intersection between technology, urbanism, city culture, machine learning and data-driven operation to produce desired behaviour that benefits the city where open data and integration is key.

Secondly, modern micromobility services are increasingly powered by algorithms with decisions not available to the public nor operator. How do we ensure equal access when priorities are left to the machine? We’ll look at some of the challenges the mobility sector needs to be aware of in the future, but also how data and technology can help us achieve the opposite, and drive the development of more democratic and inclusive cities.