NEVS has presented its new mobility ecosystem: PONS—the first generation of autonomous vehicles with a connected user interface. The self-driving vehicle Sango is the centerpiece of the system. The self-driving vehicle Sango NEVS developed PONS because cities all over the world, clogged by pollution and traffic, want to do whatever... Read more →

Electric cars are becoming an attractive business proposition for high-mileage vehicle operators such as ride-sharer Uber in key EU capitals such as Paris, Berlin, Madrid and Lisbon, a new study by research and campaign group Transport & Environment (T&E) has found. Medium-sized battery-electric cars are on average 14% cheaper to... Read more →

The California Air Resources Board will provide up to $22 million in grants to address transportation needs in disadvantaged and low-income communities with clean transportation options under a new $22-million pilot project. The funding, available through the Sustainable Transportation Equity Project (STEP), will support the planning and implementation of clean... Read more →

Hyundai Motor will display a 1:8-scale model of its ‘UAM-PBV-Hub’ smart mobility ecosystem (earlier post) in its headquarters lobby until June 12 and at global events afterward. The 1:8-scale model on display is a miniature of the exhibit shown at CES 2020 and includes integration of its Urban Air Mobility... Read more →

A team from the University of Delaware and the University of Denver has created a new global simulation model to predict how urban land will change over the next 100 years under different social and economic conditions. The research team’s projections show that the amount of urban land on Earth... Read more →

Swiss start-up Bestmile has developed an orchestration platform for on-demand mobility providers that steers every vehicle in a fleet in real time. The focus is on the control of autonomous vehicles. Bestmile’s cloud-based mobility services solution features its Fleet Orchestration Platform, native professional and public applications, and API-enabled integration with... Read more →

An international team of researchers has used satellite images to map urban growth between 1985 and 2015. Each image captured 900 square meters of ground, a level of detail that allowed the scientists to study land-use change over time. In a paper in Nature Sustainability, they report that global urban... Read more →

Bollards and rubber curbs that prevent drivers from cutting across intersections at a diagonal can make streets safer for pedestrians, according to a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Such “centerline hardening” forces drivers to turn more slowly at close to a right angle by blocking... Read more →

The National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), launched the Civic Innovation Challenge, a national research and action competition in the smart and connected communities domain. Teams will compete for awards of up to $1 million to... Read more →

The US Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced a total of $25 billion in federal funding allocations to help US public transportation systems respond to shift in market reality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Funding is provided through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, signed... Read more →

Via, a company that provides digital infrastructure to power public mobility in cities around the world (earlier post), has raised a Series E financing led by EXOR. The financing values the company at $2.25 billion and will enable Via to advance its vision of efficient, accessible, and equitable public mobility.... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Company will establish a Hyundai Mobility Global Innovation Center in Singapore (HMGICs) to accelerate its innovation efforts, with support from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). The new innovative lab will be located in Singapore’s Jurong Innovation District. HMGICs will occupy a footprint of 44,000 m2 with the... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation and NTT Corporation entered into a memorandum of understanding concerning a business and capital alliance to build a long-term and continuous cooperative relationship that enables the commercialization of smart city businesses via the realization of a smart city platform. Smart city platform. The platform is to consist... Read more →

Those living in polluted cities are more at risk from COVID-19, the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) warned today. Air pollution can cause hypertension, diabetes and respiratory diseases, conditions that doctors are starting to link to higher mortality rates for COVID-19. A 2003 study on victims of the coronavirus SARS... Read more →

Airspace Experience Technologies (ASX), an aviation technology start-up, and Spirit AeroSystems, a global aircraft design and manufacturing company, have signed a memorandum of understanding and a definitive agreement to cooperate on creation of affordable, certified all-electric, vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The program aims to converge automotive mass production... Read more →

More than three-quarters (76%) of the world’s population now live in urban areas, according to the European Commission’s Joint Research Center’s (JRC’s) new Atlas of the Human Planet 2019. The Atlas will be officially launched on Monday at the 10th session of the World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi. The... Read more →

A new report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) finds that, taken together with public transport, walking and cycling for short city journeys provide the greatest benefits for both human health and the environment in urban areas. The introduction and rapid uptake of app-based vehicle sharing schemes can also have... Read more →

TDK Corporation subsidiary TDK Ventures Inc. has invested in AutoFlightX, an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) air mobility company. AutoFlightX is an eVTOL air-cargo and air-taxi company headquartered in Munich, with R&D centers in Shanghai and Shenzhen, China. AutoFlightX is the fourth investment by the TDK corporate venture capital... Read more →

Audi is moving ahead with networked traffic lights in Düsseldorf. After Ingolstadt, the city on the Rhine is the second in Europe in which Audi is introducing its Traffic Light Information service. At the end of January, Audi drivers will see information from around 150 traffic lights in their cockpit,... Read more →

New research from McGill University and the University of California, Santa Cruz has found that the local streets of the world’s cities are becoming less connected, a global trend that is driving urban sprawl and discouraging the use of public transportation. The new study, published in an open-access paper in... Read more →

At CES, Toyota revealed plans to build a prototype “city” of the future on a 175-acre (0.71 km2) site at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan. Called the Woven City, it will be a fully connected ecosystem powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Envisioned as a “living laboratory,” the Woven... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Company unveiled at CES 2020 its vision for urban mobility to help vitalize human-centered future cities. To realize the vision, Hyundai Motor showcased three mobility solutions, comprising Urban Air Mobility (UAM); Purpose Built Vehicle (PBV), and Hub, a place for mobility transfer and community activities. Based on these... Read more →

Uber and Hyundai Motor Company announced a new partnership to develop Uber Air Taxis for a future aerial ride share network and unveiled a new full-scale aircraft concept at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Hyundai is the first automotive company to join the Uber Elevate initiative, bringing automotive-scale manufacturing capability... Read more →

BAE Systems is collaborating with Jaunt Air Mobility to explore the development of electric energy management systems for urban air mobility (UAM) vehicles through a memorandum of understanding (MOU). UAM is an aviation industry term for on-demand and automated passenger or cargo-carrying air transportation services, typically flown without a pilot.... Read more →

ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and Taoyuan City in Taiwan have launched a unique global community that recognizes the fundamental importance of sustainable urban freight for sustainable urban developments. Called ICLEI EcoLogistics Community, it is the first city network in the world committed to a sustainable urban freight future.... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation and Nishi-Nippon Railroad Co., Ltd. (Nishitetsu) have begin full-scale operation of the Toyota-developed multi-modal mobility service “my route” for smartphones. The service was launched in Fukuoka City and Kitakyushu City in collaboration with service providers in the areas of traffic, shopping, and event information. The project will... Read more →

Concentrations of the harmful NO2 pollutant across 30 major European cities could be reduced by up to 40% with the correct traffic policy measures, according to EU Joint Research Center (JRC) scientists. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is the single largest environmental health risk in Europe.... Read more →

At the 9th edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, SEAT announced the creation of a new strategic business unit focused on urban mobility and presented its new e-Kickscooter concept and its first electric e-Scooter concept. The SEAT Urban Mobility business unit will integrate all the product,... Read more →

In China, the recently opened Airbus China Innovation Center (ACIC) battery lab is looking to power a new generation of electric-powered aerial vehicles. Asia is the global epicenter of battery development and production, with Japan and Korea as the worldwide leaders. However, China is rapidly catching up to the traditional... Read more →

Porsche and Boeing signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore the premium urban air mobility market and the extension of urban traffic into airspace. With this partnership, both companies will leverage their respective market strengths and insights to study the future of premium urban air mobility vehicles. As part of... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) has appointed Dr. Jaiwon Shin as Executive Vice President and Head of its newly established Urban Air Mobility Division. An internationally renowned aeronautics engineer, Dr. Shin will lead the company into a new era of developing smart mobility products within the aviation industry. Having worked on... Read more →

The benefits of living in a walkable neighborhood could be diminished by increased exposure to traffic-related air pollution, suggests a study led by St. Michael’s Hospital in Canada and ICES, a non-profit research institute that uses population-based health information to produce knowledge on a broad range of health care issues.... Read more →

Boeing and start-up Kitty Hawk Corporation have entered a strategic partnership to collaborate on future efforts to advance safe urban air mobility. The strategic partnership will bring together the innovation of Kitty Hawk’s Cora air taxi division with Boeing’s scale and aerospace expertise. Cora is an electric, autonomous fully fledged... Read more →

The City of Arcadia, California and Connected Signals, Inc. are introducing new smart signal priority systems for the city’s mass transit system. The program integrates Arcadia’s existing systems with Connected Signals’ patent-pending vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology to improve mobility. The technology reduces traffic signal delays, and uses artificial intelligence to anticipate... Read more →

Agility Robotics has unveiled a new bipedal robot named Digit, which adds an upper torso, arms, sensors, and additional computing power to the company’s Cassie robot design. Digit’s four degree-of-freedom (4-DOF) arms greatly extend both the mobility and utility of Digit, as compared to Cassie. Digit Agility is teaming up... Read more →

DHL Express and intelligent autonomous aerial vehicle company EHang entered into a strategic partnership to launch a fully automated and intelligent smart drone delivery solution to tackle the last-mile delivery challenges in the urban areas of China. The new customized route, which has been exclusively created for a DHL customer,... Read more →

Researchers from the University of Kentucky and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority have determined that, contrary to the concept and vision, transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft are the biggest contributor to growing traffic congestion in San Francisco. Using data scraped from the application programming interfaces of... Read more →

Migration has been a driving force behind some of the biggest changes around the world—particularly over the past two decades. The shift of individuals moving from rural areas to urban areas has not only driven economic development, but also created myriad challenges for policymakers who need to understand the needs... Read more →

Kia will present a potential solution for smart-city mobility at CES 2019 with its SEED Car concept. The SEED Car is a four-wheel electric cycle with a range of 100 km (62 miles) based on a pedal-electric hybrid system, requiring pedal input from the driver but with a high degree... Read more →

The European Union has chosen the MOBILus consortium, comprising the city of Barcelona, SEAT and 46 other cities, businesses and universities in 15 European countries, to develop the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) on Urban Mobility, an initiative that is tasked with developing innovations in urban mobility in the European... Read more →

The City of Paris and Groupe Renault announced their intention to share their expertise and skills to develop electric mobility for Parisians, Île-de-France residents and visitors. The partnership will result in short-, medium- and long-term actions in favor of the development of connected and autonomous electric vehicles. As a first... Read more →

Railway industry company CAF has entered into an agreement to acquire Solaris Bus & Coach, a global supplier of conventional and electric buses with presence in over 700 cities in 32 countries. With a 2017 turnover of close to €450 million, it has production plants in Poland in the cities... Read more →

Daimler’s moovel Group and the Stuttgarter Strassenbahnen AG (SSB) are launching a new mobility service in Stuttgart. Named “Flex Pilot”, the service allows customers to book flexibly and on demand. The new on-demand service will be tested on selected days from 14 December 2017. The service will then start with... Read more →

UPS launched an eBike that will deliver packages in downtown Pittsburgh, Pa. The electrically-assisted tricycle will help reduce carbon emissions in addition to traffic, noise and air quality challenges in Pittsburgh. The deployment is part of UPS’s Cycle Solutions and the company’s Rolling Laboratory, which tests alternative fuels and advanced... Read more →

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are partnering with the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to develop UrbanSense, a comprehensive sensor network and real-time visualization platform that helps cities evaluate trends in urban activity. The project, initiated by ORNL’s Urban Dynamics Institute (UDI), centers on... Read more →

Based on their findings in a new study, researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota suggest that modifying urban form—as a means of affecting motor vehicle usage—may be a strategy to mitigate urban air pollution. Their paper appears in the ACS journalEnvironmental Science & Technology. They... Read more →

A new study by a team from the University of Pennsylvania and MIT suggests it will be easier for cities to reduce CO2 emissions coming from residential energy use rather than from local transportation. This reduction will happen mostly thanks to better building practices, not greater housing density. The study... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz Vans, US drone systems developer Matternet and Swiss online marketplace siroop have started a pilot project in Zurich to test an efficient van and drone-based system for on-demand delivery of e-commerce goods. The drone delivers the shipment not to the consumer, but rather to the delivery van, which handles... Read more →

The mode of travel you take on your daily work commute can make a big difference in your exposure to air pollution, according to a new study by researchers at the California Air Resources Board (ARB). The study, published recently in Atmospheric Environment, investigated commuter exposure to PM2.5, black carbon... Read more →

by Dave Crichton Driverless cars are poised to decongest personal car traffic, shrink our eco footprint, free up parking spaces and reduce the frequency of collisions by about 90%. This could result in a conservative estimate of $642 billion in cost savings. But as promising as autonomous private vehicles are,... Read more →