The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has announced the winner of the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) in the field of urban mobility. The MOBiLus consortium, which includes the Technische Universität München (TUM), the City of Munich, Unternehmertum, and BMW, was selected. The 48 international partners aim to develop solutions for sustainable urban transport. TUM in Munich is one of the five innovation hubs. The EU is contributing approximately €400 million to the multi-billion euro project, which is headquartered in Barcelona.
The consortium MOBiLus The acronym stands for "Mobility for Liveable Urban Spaces" and aims to find mobility solutions for livable urban spaces. The EuroTech Alliance, consisting of the Technical University of Munich (TU Munich), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and TU Eindhoven (TU/e), formed the core consortium in 2015. A total of eleven European universities are now represented in the consortium, with TUM being the only German one.
Global companies such as E.ON, BMW, Siemens and SEAT are on board. Entrepreneurship, the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at TUM, is also one of the partners. Entrepreneurship was designated by the German government as a Digital Hub Mobility Thirteen cities are also participating in the major project, including Copenhagen, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Prague, Istanbul, and Munich.
MOBiLus aims to bring together the common good and individual interests
The central conflict in the development of urban mobility is intended to be reflected in the lowercase letters “i” and “us”: the English words for “I” and “we”, in the name MOBiLus.
“We have individual interests from the economy that we must bring together with the public interests of a city,”
explained Gebhard Wulfhorst, Professor of Settlement Structure and Transport Planning and coordinator of the project at TUM.
“This is the key to sustainable development.”
An important goal, therefore, is to increase the involvement of citizen representatives in the projects. Another major challenge is to make cities more livable.
“The most precious resource in the city is space, and that is limited,”
explains Wulfhorst. One goal of MOBiLus is therefore to make part of the area currently used by motor vehicle traffic available for other public uses.
TUM President Wolfgang A. Herrmann for a successful competition:
"Mobility and intelligent traffic and transport systems are a strong research focus at TUM—well-established in the regional environment, but also at our Asian location in Singapore, where TUM.CREATE researches mobility concepts for megacities."
