Dr. Stefan Carsten: Future – City – Mobility.

He was project manager in the ‘Society and Technology Research Group’ of Daimler AG in Berlin, where he designed new mobility services such as car2go and moovel. He is currently on the advisory board of the Federal Ministry of Transport for “Strategic Guidelines of Public Transport in Germany”, the IAA Mobility in Munich, the Reallabor Radbahn in Berlin and a member of the design advisory board of HOWOGE Berlin. Since 2019, he has been publishing the Mobility Report in cooperation with the Zukunftsinstitut.

Stefan Carsten Lecture topics

• Future of mobility – Future of public transport – Future of the bicycle – Future of the car
  
  For Stefan Carsten, the future of mobility represents an essential aspect of his work for a sustainable development of society. He highlights the fundamental paradigms of mobility in the context of space and time: the ever-increasing emphasis on active lifestyles, with the bicycle as the new status symbol of our time, which goes hand in hand with a reassessment of public space. Seamless mobility for him is seamless, frictionless mobility with public transport as the central access point.
  
  In a world where products are becoming less and less important, the diversity of services is the most important prerequisite for being able to evaluate and decide how we want to and can be mobile. Besides public transport, this includes above all the offers of micromobility – scooters, mopeds, bikes of the sharing economy. And finally, “Next Automobility” shows the future of the car. The car that is electric, autonomous and shared.

• Electromobility – The new mobility behavior of society
  
  The battery has won in every respect – even if the German automotive industry still sees it differently to some extent. New competitors, new players are not only waiting in the wings, but they have also long since become part of a new energy landscape. The focus is not only increasingly on the convergence of energy and mobility, but also on the reassessment of the car, the petroleum industry, and the energy sectors.
  
  What is actually happening to petrol stations in this field of tension? Well, they will probably not be needed in their current form for much longer. Instead, new spaces for charging and mobility are emerging. But whether this will also change our mobility behaviour is anything but clear. Because mobility in the future will be more than just the car.

• New Cities – New Spaces – The new World of Smart Cities
  
  For Stefan Carsten, new cities and new spaces are the prerequisite for new mobility. Our cities are undergoing an unprecedented renewal process. Whereas in the past it was all about cars and roads, in the future the focus will be on attractive spaces and quality of life. Nothing other than the transformation of the city will enable a sustainable, inclusive, and secure future where companies want to invest, and people want to live.
  
  That is why more and more cities are adopting the Road Diet principle. This road diet reduces street space for cars and thus creates new public spaces for sustainable uses – for pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport. In Paris alone, 70’000 public parking spaces are being removed to make room for bike lanes. Residential quarters and neighbourhoods are being mixed or given new functions. Thus, places that people used to have to leave become urban neighbourhoods where everything exists (The 15-minute city).

• Sustainable logistics: How and where will we shop in the future? The economic and ecological supply chains
  
  However, our cities and spaces will not be able to function without sustainable logistics concepts. Will we still be transporting goods by rail in the future or only by road? What will happen with the driver shortage and how will this affect the future of production? These questions show the necessity that there will be, must be, a rethink in every respect.
  
  In the future, there will be more pressure on companies and their supply chains as new environmental certifications come onto the agenda. Sustainability is increasingly becoming an economic factor and companies are becoming transparent. Many are preparing for these new framework conditions; many more still know far too little about them. Time for a transparent assessment of influential factors in logistics and the commercial vehicle sector.

Stefan Carsten works with various international players in the mobility world: with the bicycle industry, public transport companies, the automotive industry as well as cities and municipalities.

Dr. Stefan Carsten was born 1973 in Lisbon. Stefan Carsten is a Futurist and Urban Geographer and a global leader in Mobility and planning new city models. He is married, has two children and lives and works in Berlin.