"When it comes to transportation, there are no zero-rate energy solutions."
With the increase in the world's population and current environmental issues, reflections on tomorrow's mobility are becoming more active. What about deeds? According to Jean-Pierre Corniou, Deputy CEO of SIA Partners, the triple equation is not easy to solve: getting ready to welcome 10 billion earthlings, most of whom will live in cities, and ensuring low-carbon mobility. We are trying to go further and further, and faster and faster, on the relationship between "effectiveness of action" and "energy efficiency". However, the transport of the future is expensive and must be of real social utility.
It is also necessary to improve the speed of transport while maintaining the safety of passengers and reducing the carbon footprint. In the era of cyber terrorism, the issue of user data security becomes crucial. While connected cars are well present (Tesla for example), autonomous vehicles are still struggling to find their model both on the side of manufacturers and legislation. Currently, there are no Level 3 vehicles on the market, in which the steering wheel is no longer held. How will we also need to adapt our roads, infrastructure and behaviours? Companies, research laboratories and institutions are mobilizing on these issues.
"Toulouse will be a European address for tomorrow's mobility"
Toulouse is a major player in the mobility of the future, thanks in particular to the richness of its industrial fabric. The city is home to more than 200 companies in the transportation sector. It was therefore only natural for Transpod to turn to the pink city to set up its Hyperloop project. It is on the Francazal site that this train of the future will be tested. This territory dedicated to intelligent transport allows for technical tests and the emergence of new ideas.
For example, an autonomous shuttle linking the Oncopole car park in Toulouse with the care centre, thus facilitating access to patients, is being planned. According to the Métropole de Toulouse, the adopted Toulouse-based Easy Mile would participate in the call for tenders. Even more impressively, the flying cars of Urban Air Mobility (Airbus) or the startup EVA are on everyone's mind. These projects, favouring air travel, would make it possible to relieve congestion in city centres while reducing air and noise pollution. In order for these innovations to find their place among consumers, they must first and foremost find their place in the city.
"There is no such thing as a smart city, but there are projects that are helping to improve it."
There is no such thing as a smart city model. We talk about Smart City to talk about the city of tomorrow, to describe the advances that will improve our daily lives. However, "humans have made nothing smarter and more sustainable than cities" according to Francis Pisani, journalist and Smart City specialist. It is important to distinguish between the administrative city and the urban system that surrounds it and the flow of trade that it generates. You have to be able to see beyond the city itself and look at what it is connected to, you have to look at the relationships between each element.
Every city or metropolis faces many problems: reducing inequality, reducing participation in global warming, improving democracy or improving the quality of life of citizens. These last points require putting people at the heart of the Smart City, and at the heart of decisions. To this end, cities such as Toulouse or large companies such as SNCF or Berger Levrault are committed to setting up various means of collecting information. These applications are sometimes not well known or little used by citizens.
The transport and city of tomorrow will gradually change our mobility, but technology, legislation, infrastructure and consumers need to move at the same time and in the same direction.
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