ISTP News

Join us for the upcoming seminar on the transition to Electric Vehicles (EVs) and its effects on public revenues and road financing. The series is a collaboration between the ISTP and the Center for Sustainable Future Mobility (CSFM). This event will feature talks from various experts that explore the challenges and opportunities associated with the rise of EVs and the evolving landscape of road funding.

In our final colloquium talk of this semester, Prof. Konstantinos Boulouchos from ETH Zurich's Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering will talk about a "net-zero" mobility future, and he will illustrate the synergetic contributions of technology innovation and policy design. He will also focus on the energy supply and climate change mitigation options for the worldwide and national transportation systems.

(Re-post from ETH News) The ETH Zurich & Swiss federal railways (SBB) mobility initiative launched in 2018 is gaining momentum. Konstantinos Boulouchos, the driving force behind the project, explains how far things have come since then and in which direction the initiative is set to develop.

The Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) recently reported on MOBIS: COVID-​19 research project, an initiative of ETH Zurich and the University of Basel with the aim of getting a picture of how the pandemic crisis is affecting mobility in Switzerland. The main findings indicate that the population has shifted away from space-efficient large vehicles, such as busses, in light of COVID-19 restrictions. However, car travel and walking have fully recovered in the post-lockdown era.

The MOBIS: COVID-19 research project, an initiative of ETH Zurich and the University of Basel, is a continuation of the original MOBIS study. The aim of the project is to get a picture of how the crisis is affecting mobility and everyday life in Switzerland. The latest weekly report presenting post-lockdown results as of July 13^th is now available and the analysis will be extended in the coming weeks.

Automated driving technology along with electric propulsion are widely expected to fundamentally change transport systems. In their study, ISTP member Prof. Kay W. Axhausen in collaboration with various colleagues analysed the production costs of various transport modes both today and in an automated-electric future. Their results indicate that transportation costs will become more similar across different countries and the highest impact of automation is to be expected in high-income countries.

To slow down the spread of the Coronavirus, the population has been instructed to stay at home. This measure consequently has a major impact on our daily mobility behaviour. But who is being affected, and how? The MOBIS : COVID-19 research project is a continuation of the original MOBIS study. The aim of the project is to get a picture of how the crisis is affecting mobility and everyday life in Switzerland. The first results are now available, and the analysis will be extended in the coming weeks.

Electric mobility - still a privilege? Electric mobility is not suitable for mass use yet. This can be partially attributed to the lack of public charging stations. The number of Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations that are located in public parking lots within cities, is indeed modest, as a recent survey conducted among the ten largest cities in Switzerland by the Swiss Daily Newspaper Tages-Anzeiger indicates.

The Swiss Daily Newspaper Tages-Anzeiger recently published an insightful article about the preliminary results of an ETH Zurich Mobility research project. According to these, electric mobility is not suitable for mass use yet. “Charging stations close to apartment facilities should change that,” says ETH Prof. Thomas Bernauer, who gave a talk together with various experts in the field of Electric Mobility on Tuesday, January 14, 2020.

ETH researchers have shown that we can use the structure of urban road networks to predict their traffic capacity. This information enables urban and transportation planners to quantify how changes will influence traffic volumes. (Re-​post from ETH News)