Sustainable Mobility: E-Paper with Initiatives from AGYA Workshop published

September 7th 2022 | RLI, TU Berlin and the Arab-German Young Academy (AGYA) have published an e-paper with initiatives from the workshop “Concepts for Sustainable Urban Mobility – Bottom-up Approaches and Case Studies”. The workshop was jointly conducted in December 2021 by Philipp Blechinger, head of the research unit Off-Grid Systems at RLI and Zakia Soomauroo Researcher from the OG unit and Felix Creutzig from TU Berlin. The e-paper is an interactive knowledge collection and contains the findings, contributions and presented initiatives of the workshop. In addition, it also introduces various participants.

The paper presents nine international initiatives that deal with the transformation of urban mobility. They approach the topic from the bottom up, starting from specific questions and use cases. Examples are Tabdeel with the motto “Cycling for a revolution of transport modes and gender roles” in Cairo or Pop-up Bike Lanes Bogota. In addition, Jakob Gemassmer, research associate in the RLI research unit Mobility with Renewable Energies, presented the initiative Kiezblocks/changingcities Berlin. All contributions inform about goals, approaches and also challenges of the initiatives.

“The mobility turnaround concerns people all around the world. With our publication, we show various ways in which the transformation of the transport sector can succeed in a fair and inclusive way. There are already a variety of examples from Berlin and Arab cities showing examples for a successful turnaround,” says Philipp Blechinger, summarizing the significance of the publication.

Feminist perspective and international network

Susanne Menge gave one of the workshop’s keynotes. She is a member of the German Bundestag, spokeswoman of the Federal Working Group for Mobility and Transport (BAG MoVe) – Die Grünen and founder of “Frauen machen Mobil(ität)”. Looking ahead to the event, she emphasizes the importance of the feminist approach:

“A feminist approach is different from the narrow view in planning and building that most people have, it does not focus exclusively on technical solutions. We focus on accessibility, safety, and social justice. This event captured this perspective perfectly and helped us to understand different challenges at different places and to learn from each other.”

Moderator and mobility expert Katja Diehl summarized her impression of the workshop as follows: “It was a pleasure to moderate this event and to learn about the diversity and variety of initiatives working towards sustainable urban mobility in their cities. Especially, the international comparison opened up many new and inspiring perspectives. I look forward to a continued exchange and increasing network of initiatives showing the way forward to just, inclusive and sustainable mobility.”

Need for action to transform urban mobility

Globally, around a quarter of direct greenhouse gas emissions come from the transport sector. Passenger cars in turn account for the largest share. Although these figures make clear how important is a turnaround in this sector, there is currently little change in sight. At the same time, urbanization is on the rise: 60 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in cities by 2030. Concepts are therefore needed that go further in planning future cities than simply improving technical components of cars. Concepts and related initiatives of this kind are presented in the e-paper.

AGYA is a bilateral academy that supports cooperation between young Arab and German scientists. It is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), among others.

The project was funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Science, Health, Care and Equality.

Click here for the complete e-paper.
Click here to watch the videos of the workshop on YouTube.