The Disruptive Mobility and the Future of our Neighbourhoods

Author: Mohsen Mohammadzadeh

Abstract

This working paper provides a resource for urban designers, planners and policymakers in New Zealand concerning disruptive mobility and its potential impacts on our cities. Based on the literature review, the report aims to map future mobility in cities. Disruptive mobility may create a set of new opportunities and solutions to tackle the pervasive private car usage in our cities that relates to the following issues: safety, car ownership, parking demand, vehicle kilometres travelled, congestion and capacity, development patterns, infrastructure design, efficiency and carbon emissions, transportation equity, and the quality of the built environment.
This working paper endeavours to define a meaning for disruptive mobility and sheds light on its different dimensions, including automation and the electrification of cars, as well as shared mobility. To do so, it will first investigate the characteristics of the automation of cars as the first dimension of disruptive mobility. The electrification of cars will be considered as the second dimension of disruptive mobility; yet aligns with the automation. Then, it will
review how the utilisation of smart technologies such as mobile Apps may significantly change our transportation from private car usage to shared mobility. This working paper will then investigate the potential positive and adverse impacts of disruptive mobility on urban form and the built environment in the future.