Joi Ito is a creative all-round talent. He studied physics and is the founder and managing director of the venture capital company Neoteny Co., Ltd., which mainly invests in new Internet technologies. Ito is also a board member of several innovative companies, writes a regular blog and even looks good as a DJ. It is simply fun to listen to this entrepreneur with a lively mind, because in spite of many years of experience he has not lost the ability to get excited about new things, to remain curious and to tackle his tasks with lots of optimism. His enthusiasm and openness are genuinely infectious and inspiring – just what people imagine a true mentor to be like. Those who work and research under his leadership at MIT Media Lab, a leading university for technology and communication, can consider themselves fortunate.

Joi Ito, head of the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge (Massachusetts)

© Martin Lewicki

His address to the Ideas City Festival was primarily about the untapped capital of the Internet. But along the way he could not resist making repeated calls for more courage and willingness to take risks, because these are two fundamental characteristics of making innovations and finding creative solutions for difficult tasks.

Before Internet – After Internet

He divides the Internet timeline into two distinct parts: BI (Before Internet) and AI (After Internet). Many people will agree with his description of life before Internet as relatively simple and manageable. Life before the WWW was based on clear rules and structures that people could rely on. In the phase after the Internet, many rules and structures were broken up: Life became more unpredictable, and too complex and fast-paced for some. The Internet was also responsible for flat hierarchies, which permit more scope for creativity and the ability to react faster on the one hand, but require that everyone takes on more responsibility and acquires additional capabilities.

Joi Ito, the principles of AI – After Internet

© Martin Lewicki

In his talk Ito did not discuss in more detail the downside of AI, but for many the Internet means an increasing burden, something which has meanwhile been proved. Permanent availability, reading work emails in your free time and the flood of information, not least a consequence of social media, can be too much for some people. Recently companies have tried to protect their employees from excessive stress, and even recommend them not to read work emails in their leisure time. At Volkswagen, for example, emails are no longer forwarded to employees’ smartphones 30 minutes after the end of the working day.

Practice before theory

Joi Ito however focuses on a different phenomenon of the AI age: the change in behavior with regard to innovation. Today it is possible to develop innovations without great financial investment and to start up even before providers of capital are found. “First you do something, and you ask for money afterwards,” Ito explains. This is possible thanks to the reduction in innovation costs. “Practice before theory“ is his creed.

The costs of trying something out in the IT business are relatively low, for example if you want to develop a service like Twitter. To do that you only have to tap into your network and involve the world around you. Many people in the creative and IT sectors are willing to develop something motivated by their passion, without a financial reward. You only have to be well networked and share a passion for something.

Joi Ito, head of the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge (Massachusetts)

© Martin Lewicki

Ito quickly comes to one of his main points: “Risk is important. You have to take risks.” We all know the example of the mother warning her child about the hot stove. Ito says that he was one of those inquisitive children who touched the hot stove despite the warning and risked getting burned. However, for him this was an important part of learning. You should not shelter people too much, because this deprives them of a large part of the learning process.

Agility is also extremely important in a constantly changing environment. People should liberate themselves from the idea of wanting to plan everything. Instead you have to incorporate happy coincidences into the planning and take advantage of them. In this way fast networks which arise spontaneously can generate great creative potential even without much planning and thus have a big effect. He calls this “the power of pull”.

Believe in reality, not theory

One outstanding example by Ito is the aid program Safecast that he set up after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in 2011. Without having a plan, he networked with his friends in order to help people in Japan. One major problem at that time was measuring radioactivity on the spot, because not enough Geiger counters were available and there were consequently too few measuring points. His network therefore decided to help people through Geiger counters and freely available measurement data. Without specialist knowledge of the subject they succeeded within a very short time in developing simple Geiger counters that they could send to people in Japan. Within a few months the crowd-sourcing measurement network Safecast had over a million data points in Japan – many times more than what the Japanese government made available. The start-up capital for this brilliant idea, by the way, came from the crowdfunding portal Kickstarter.

Ito’s mind is extremely agile. He positively bubbles with ideas and examples for his theories. He encourages people to take charge of things themselves, to shape and design them. As quick as lightning he makes the connection between his theory and urban development. He thinks it makes no sense to try to solve structural urban problems from outside. The solutions have to come from within. People should be able to design their own residential area themselves, as they know their own needs best. For that reason creativity and passion have to be promoted and people encouraged to do what they like doing most. “I believe in reality, not theory,” is how Ito explains his approach to tackling things spontaneously without a plan.

As an example he cites Detroit, a city with major problems. He and his institute have tried to analyze and tackle the problems together. In doing so they quickly realized that people in the problem areas of Detroit are tired of hearing big promises from outside helpers. The residents want to get involved themselves and work on the solutions together.

One significant problem in Detroit has proved to be the lack of street lights. Ito and his team set out to find a way of making efficient solar lights, ideally with a do-it-yourself solution. This is a striking example of how important it is to seek individual solutions in cooperation with the people who are affected and to pay attention to people’s needs. Within a community the network is everything, as people can only achieve something by working together. Here too the Internet can help people to network better and come together.

Ito’s talk is full of idealism and optimism. He encourages his audience to take more initiative and risks themselves, to be agile and creative. The Internet seems to be the ideal medium for this, and its resources are far from having been fully exploited. It helps people to create networks in a flash, to implement decisions instantly, to put ideas into practice with low investment, while remaining constantly lean and mobile –it is an ideal instrument for making innovation happen. However, it is not easy to play this instrument, and only the best virtuosos succeed in creating true masterpieces. Joi Ito is undoubtedly one of them, and a great inspiration for all those who want to follow his lead. There is no doubt that the Internet provides a lot of untapped capital for creative treasure hunters.

“Getting from A to B” used to mean taking a clear decision. Does it make more sense to go by train or by car to an evening event – or is it better to call it off and spend the evening at home, because getting into the city simply takes too much time. Today it can already be observed that asymmetric patterns of mobility are continually on the increase, which means it is no longer necessary to take decisions. People use various means of transport to get around day by day and also to carry out the tasks of their daily lives. While sitting in a train they can attend to their emails by smartphone or take part in a video conference linked to the other side of the world using a headset and camera. The asymmetric mobility hypothesis underlines the fact that mobility will be much more flexible in the year 2050. Changing between different modes of transport could be made much simpler and more efficient, and be more of an experience, in the future.

Hypothesis 2: Asymmetric Mobility

„Cities have always been places of flux and change. They offer new forms of mobility and freedom. Even the smallest city is a dense set of overlapping networks. People, goods, ideas don’t simply flow in predictable linear patterns. Cities create continuous opportunities for slippages between systems. This diversity and asymmetry of movement creates new connections, new potentials and new efficiencies. Since the very beginning of cities, people flock to them seeking mobility and freedom. In leaving behind the slow speed of village life for the fast-paced city, not only did individual’s rate of movement increase, the rate at which they encountered new stimuli and change as the result of movement increased. The result was an unprecedented release of human creativity and invention.

In the twentieth century, planners sought to absorb increased scales of movement and reduce the negative effects of that mobility by rationalizing it on the basis of symmetric everyday travel patterns. They assumed individuals choose forms of transportation based on predictable commutes to their work location. In this century, travel will become asymmetric, as individuals traverse multiple forms of transportation as they navigate their daily routines. Predictable patterns give way to suites of real time movement options with continuous means to slide from one system to another. Hierarchical patterns of nodes, hubs, etc give way to a continuously evolving biodiversity of possible movements. Movement patterns and behavior in the extreme cities of the future will be less predictable and more complex than in contemporary cities.

As the nature of work and leisure change, so will how people move about cities, where people move about cities and when they move. Contemporary transport systems are broadly designed to support conventional commuting behaviors, yet designs primarily for commuting patterns are already outdated. Travelers no longer only move from home to work and back again. Instead, people combine travel modes, times and destinations in spatially asymmetric ways that reflect ongoing changes to the spatial structure and economies of cities.

Importantly, cities in the future will not be constrained by a binary choice between private and mass transit, nor even by a choice between movement system and destination. Cities foster new ways to connect with people and commerce within regions and across the globe, from online commerce (substitute for retail travel), shared vehicles and telecommuting. Technological improvements in computing and communications have the potential to dramatically reduce transaction costs of movement. Travelers will be freed of constraints of ownership without sacrificing the utility of use. They will occupy multiple movement systems at any one time and slide unpredictably between them. The way in wich cities always foster overlapping and asymmetric movement to magnify potentials will be taken to the limit.“

^{Columbia University}

Read more about the 'Extreme Cities Project’ and the five hypotheses.

Cities are places where different classes, ethnic groups and multicultural ideas meet. They are all connected to each other through the city and use common infrastructure and technologies. The premise of the complexity hypothesis is that this will produce an enormous concentration of knowledge in the urban environment. For example, if the ideas and data that are present today in the rush hour in the center of large cities were to come together and be exchanged, a high degree of creativity could result. In tomorrow’s megacities even more people will live together in a restricted space. The inevitable consequence of this is increased exchanges and potential for innovation.

Hypothesis 3: Complexity

„The city is the most complex entity humans have ever created. It is full of individuals in intensely specialized roles, connected to multiple overlapping local systems and supported by massive amounts of collective infrastructure and technology that interact in massively complex ways. This biodiversity and complexity drives the growth that triggers evolution in a relentless feedback loop. Each corner of this unimaginably complex system can trigger transformative and irreversible change. When asked what a city is, architect Louis Kahn said ‚It is the place where a small boy, as he walks through it, may see something that will tell him what he wants to do his whole life’.

Cities are full of people from all walks of life, places in which different classes, ethnicities, and ideas come together. As a measure of a collective intelligence, complexity is a measure of cities. Like cholesterol, there are good and bad forms of complexity in the city. Sociocultural richness, diversity, and open, easily fixable and modifiable forms of technology produce a complexity that allows cities to be more productive and resilient. Rising bureaucracy, incompatible closed technologies, and barriers to entry produce a negative complexity, making cities more vulnerable in an era of growing threats such as extreme climate events, urban warfare, and terrorism. As systems come to rely on systems, cascading failures can occur, producing accidents like the meltdown at Fukushima, the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon, or the Flash Crash, in which a series of weaknesses in related systems creates an event that spirals out of control.

Highly complex systems, in other words, are extremely vulnerable to stress. Just as the brain is the organ that is most demanding of energy, complexity demands massive amounts of resources. When civilizations fail to meet these demands, they collapse. When they do, however, their cities are places of the most immense vitality, allowing a diversity of exchange unmatched in human history. Extreme Cities maximize complexity, and foster new forms of complexity.“

^{Columbia University}

Read more about the 'Extreme Cities Project’ and the five hypotheses.

At the second City Dossier Workshop in Ingolstadt, Eric Höweler and J. Meejin Yoon presented their latest findings and talked with Audi experts, members of the Audi Urban Future Insight Team and representatives of the curator, Stylepark. This was followed by Audi experts presenting future technologies that could drive ahead the approach of Höweler + Yoon Architecture.

Two principles: sharing and switching

Höweler + Yoon Architecture introduced two important principles that will influence future transportation in the society of the USA.
The first guiding principle is sharing. In the future people will share more and more – in addition to music, information, bicycles and automobiles, they may also share space and time. They believe that there will be an increasing number of communities with common interests, which will make contact with each other in order to share.
On the other hand, the architects also emphasize the principle of switching – meaning that people will change in as easy and uncomplicated a way as possible between different modes of mobility. From the car to the subway, from the subway to the bus, and from the bus to a bike to get to the office. Without waiting times, without problems.

Eric Höweler: “The Boswash region is characterized by a high level of mobility, both public and private: many forms of mobility coexist within a diverse mobility ecology. However these different mobilities are not integrated in the sense that switching between modes is difficult and inconvenient, if not impossible. Taking the subway may not be an option, given that people’s homes are often too far from a station or stop. This gap between the public transit system and houses is often referred to as the 'last mile' phenomenon. The car has often been the only mobility system to close the gap in this last mile. Similarly, the first mile, and the mid mile have also been identified as gaps within contemporary commuting practices.”

Only when the gaps that interrupt the flow from A to B in some places have been identified, can specific solutions be developed. To this purpose Höweler + Yoon Architecture have researched four commuter typologies that are often encountered in the Boston metropolitan area. With the help of this information the architects aim to recognize gaps in the supply system and to derive solutions.

Four types of commuter with various needs

The different kinds of commuter are defined as follows:

THE ROAD WARRIOR

© Yuri Arcurs. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, 2013.

This are typical traveling businesspersons who live in the suburbs and commute daily from there to work and back again. This does not really present a difficulty – except for the fact that they do not always find a parking space straight away. Every day they therefore spend valuable time looking for somewhere to park. Altogether they take 20 minutes to cover a distance of 22.5 kilometers (14 miles).

THE REVERSE COMMUTER

© Rui Vale Sousa. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, 2013.

From their homes in the city center, commuters of this type drive their cars daily to work on the business premises of their companies, which are outside the center of town. Apart from a few traffic hold-ups there is no problem here. The difficulties start when they drive home again, as they find no parking spaces in front of their homes. 50 kilometers (31 miles) take them 44 minutes.

THE STRAPHANGER

© Bevan Goldswain. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, 2013.

Straphangers are those who commute in buses and by subway. They live in quiet surroundings some way outside the city and work in the center, approximately 19 kilometers (12 miles) away. To do this they have to drive each day to a park’n’ride area, change to public transport, and finally go to their destination on foot. Sometimes it happens that they find no more spaces at the park’n’ride station. It takes them a total of 55 minutes.

THE CAST-AWAY

© Aleshyn Andrei. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, 2013.

Cast-aways have to travel from one district of the city to another – every day. This takes them 44 minutes for a mere 8 kilometers (5 miles). Usually they first catch a bus, then travel by subway. Unfortunately the bus often arrives late, and there is a delay in getting the connection to the subway. When they finally arrive at their station, they continue to their destination on foot.

Next step: identify locations

The question that Höweler + Yoon Architecture now pose in the next step is: What precisely most slows down these types of commuter – and to what extent is there an accumulation of such experiences at particular places in Boston? Is it the time they spend looking for a parking space at the park’n’ride station? Or the fact that, although the train is a practical way of traveling , the journey there is not convenient as the bus to the station always arrives late? The identification of specific places and thus of related commuter habits is intended to help create a city dossier that is as close to real life as possible.

J. Meejin Yoon: “A thorough analysis of mobility practices, demands, and services in Boston has targeted a number of sites that would lend themselves to a first/last mile system. This system could consist of both hardware and software: vehicles, stations, signage and information, as well as a service and dedicated lanes for a new mobility infrastructure.”

Audi’s future technologies and the last mile

Which future technologies could drive forward this approach by Höweler + Yoon Architecture, and how could Audi make a contribution towards implementation? With reference to Höweler + Yoon Architecture’s research, following their presentation Audi experts from six different departments introduced future technologies which could be relevant for a specific development of the ideas and which are already the subject of intense research in the departments concerned. Some examples:

• Interfaces in the automobile: The experts at Audi for the human-machine interface are examining for example the alternatives for attaching interfaces to the outside of the car. These interfaces can transmit data from the car to mobile devices. In this way it is, for example, possible to receive data about your surroundings at a particular moment. The aim is to achieve a simple, adaptable, personalized and transportable user interface. The key phrase is “augmented information”.
• Lightweight material preferred: If a last-mile vehicle is being considered, as Höweler + Yoon Architecture suggest, in the opinion of the Audi experts lightweight construction would be especially suitable. Material for this purpose would be useful through being light enough to make mobile equipment that can be carried around – a folding bicycle, for example.
• Design of a last-mile vehicle: A vehicle that could be changeable in its shape and design, and be synchronized with users’ needs – this idea was taken up by the design experts at Audi. In their view the last-mile vehicle could be a smart system made from adaptable elements – in terms of the sound and smell of a car, for example.

Next workshop on 2 May in New York

Already on 2 May the experts are meeting again for the third City Dossier Workshop in New York, where the Ideas City Festival is taking place. One of the themes to be discussed here will be the situations in which commuters need help with their “last mile(s)” and, above all, in which locations: although this is a phenomenon that affects many people, the challenges that each different individual has to handle on his or her last yards seem to be highly diverse.

Further reports on the involvement of the Audi Urban Future Initiative in the Ideas City Festival in New York, which is taking up the issue of the future of cities for the second time from 1 through 4 May, are to follow.

Of course most people in the western world have Internet access at home. There will also be WiFi in some café or other round the corner – otherwise it’s not a trendy café. In the subway there are sometimes difficulties with getting a signal and the speed of data transfer. To make up for that, some cars can now turn into traveling WiFi hotspots thanks to built-in UMTS receivers. And in the office nothing can happen without Internet nowadays. But, as the name says, we still need a hotspot for wireless surfing. Wouldn’t it be great if Internet were freely available for us as a matter of course, anytime, anywhere?

At present we have two options for wireless surfing: via WiFi or via mobile phone networks. There is no Internet without a signal, and no Internet access without a receiving device.

Online, anytime and anywhere

In the context of the Audi Urban Future Summit in 2011 Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of the US edition of the technology magazine Wired, put forward the following hypothesis: “‘I drove my car to work.’ – Every single part of this sentence will be ridiculous to my children: ‘I drove’ – The idea that cars need to be driven will seem archaic to them. ‘My car’ – The notion of ownership is also one that is going to change. ‘To work’ – This implies the notion that you need to go to work, that there is a location where you work. And that is increasingly not the case; people work wherever.” The prerequisite for Anderson’s vision is comprehensive Internet coverage, so that we are online everywhere and at all times.

At present we have two options for wireless surfing: via WiFi or via mobile phone networks. For both of these we need a receiver device such as a smartphone, a tablet, a notebook or a UMTS stick. There is no Internet without a signal, and no Internet access without a receiving device – that is the status quo.

The decisive factor is not only the availability of a network, but also the quality of the signal and speed of data transfer. For some applications that only need small volumes of data from the WWW, this is no problem. But those who try to open the Facebook app in the GSM network, the mobile communication standard most frequently used worldwide, get impatient with its painfully long loading times. It is even more difficult to stream music or videos below ground, for example in the subway. And this is in an age when Cloud services, internet-linked apps and providers of music streaming such as simfy are blossoming.

In order to let the Internet into our lives and open up new possibilities for us, alongside availability there is also the question of the speed of data transfer.

The path to free WiFi

WiFi service free of charge in large cities is an important step on the path to a democratically networked world. There are now several models for this, some of which still regulate access. As reported in The Japan Times, since April 2013 WiFi has been available free of charge in almost all metro stations in Tokyo. However, the service can only be used five times a day at most, and then for a maximum of 15 minutes. That should be enough for most commuters, and above all it is intended to be used at the stations during waiting periods. The free WiFi service is initially being offered until the end of July, and further decisions will be taken after that.

WiFi service free of charge in large cities is an important step on the path to a democratically networked world.

In China, too, ambitious WiFi projects are being introduced in metropolitan areas. According to china.org.cn, by the end of 2013 freely available WiFi spots will be established in Shanghai in 450 public places. In Beijing as well efforts are being made to provide free WiFi in public. Unfortunately the Chinese hotspots come with the unpleasant taint of nationwide Internet censorship. At the same time the South Korean capital Seoul has announced investment of some 44 million US dollars up to 2015 to make free WiFi available practically “on every street corner” in the city. And in the major cities of Europe, too, the setting up of WiFi is marching ahead. Passengers on the London Underground can now surf the Internet free of charge with the mobile phone operator O2 and the provider Virgin Media at more than 100 stations. The app required for this can also be used by those who are not O2 customers.

The path to WiFi with free comprehensive coverage for everyone in the cities of the world is still a long one. But it is not the only means of fast surfing while on the move. Thanks to the mobile telephony standard LTE, speeds of up to 100 MBit/s are now theoretically already possible with mobile devices such as the iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S4. This corresponds to the speed of glass-fiber networks. However, LTE is a premium service with charges, and will probably stay that way in the coming years.

Who is the fastest?

In order to let the Internet into our lives and open up new possibilities for us, alongside availability there is also the question of the speed of data transfer. Here Google plans to ring in a new era. The broad-band Internet project named Google Fiber is intended to make speeds of up to 1 GBit/s possible. Thus, according to Google, it would be 100 times faster than an average DSL connection and still five times as fast as the quickest current glass-fiber connections, which run at 200 MBit/s.

The broad-band Internet project named Google Fiber is intended to make speeds of up to 1 GBit/s possible.

And what will fiber Internet do for users? It will definitely provide more convenience at home and new opportunities. Full-HD videos, online games and music services will be downloadable with practically no waiting time. Internet television could finally become reality and exploit its full potential. Several programs could be recorded simultaneously and stored either on a hard drive or in the Cloud. Naturally these luxuries will not be made available for nothing. Google Fiber at full speed is expected to cost at least 70 US dollars per month.

Scott Cleland, Internet analyst and president of Precursor LLC, a research consultancy focused on the future of Internet, regards glass-fiber technology as one of the main components for the next generation of WiFi: “The main implication of Google Fiber in urban areas specifically would be that it could in turn enable much faster WiFi mesh networks, the next generation of WiFi, just like Google Fiber is the next generation of wired broadband. Reliable, fast, un-tethered broadband for portable video viewing is what urbanites want. Thus the significance of Google Fiber is that it could be an important catalyst in meeting that video portability need in urban markets.”

At present Google Fiber is still being established and initially will only be offered in Kansas City (USA). Austin (USA) was recently chosen as the second city. But the rest of the USA and the world will have to wait a long time for the super-fast Google Fiber.

By 2015 the number of devices connected to the Internet is expected to rise to 15 billion.

Relieving pressure, acceleration, efficiency

With all these plans for the future, intended to help more and more people to get a faster and faster Internet connection, one existential question arises: How robust is today’s Internet really? In the context of CES in Las Vegas at the start of this year, the international mouthpiece for forward-looking technologies, MIT Technology Review, produced the following headline: “Your Gadgets Are Slowly Breaking the Internet”.

And in truth the figures forecasted by Intel give cause for alarm. By 2015 the number of devices connected to the Internet is expected to rise to 15 billion. This would be a load on an unprecedented scale. This is why research is taking place worldwide on how to relieve the pressure on the WWW. One of the principal problems is communication of individual receiving devices with each other, which has reached almost absurd proportions. Today smartphones, tablets and PCs communicate with each other via Cloud services and exchange data that are scattered around the world somewhere on servers. This happens even if the devices are lying on top of a desk only a few centimeters apart.

One possible solution is called Named Data Networking (NDN) and amounts to a new Internet architecture. Here the user calls up the file name on the Internet, and no longer the IP address as was usual up to now. The advantage of this would be that files are exchangeable between devices, and the copy of the file that is on the nearest server or the nearest device would be accessed. According to the project manager Lixia Zhang, this would not only speed up communication but also lighten the load on servers worldwide, as today there are many data centers from which thousands of people access the same file. This relief for the servers would create a significant energy saving and thus save resources.

A further simple way of solving the problem that makes a contribution to easing the pressure is to enable data exchange and synchronization between individual devices without the Internet. Bluetooth is an example of this. However, the range and speed prove to be handicaps here. Those who are on the move and want access to a server or a Cloud therefore inevitably require an Internet connection. In the near future this will not change much.

Future gadgets such as a smartwatch and Google Glass will shake up our Internet habits once again.

Sony

New gadgets, new possibilities

In the future Internet will have to become not only faster but also more efficient. As more and more devices communicate with each other and exchange data, they will place an additional burden on the Internet but will have to make use of new ways of transfer that spare the servers. Who would have thought five years ago that we would be able to dim our lights at home using an iPad and control multi-media systems with a smartphone app?

Future gadgets such as a smartwatch and Google Glass will shake up our Internet habits once again. Then we really will be able to communicate with our car via a watch, as in the Knight Rider TV series in the 1980s, or have information from our surroundings beamed straight to our eyes, as in the blockbuster film Terminator. But all of this and much more will only be possible with a fast, stable and omnipresent Internet connection. And then the search for a hotspot and good connection will finally have come to an end.

Stadler: When we talk about dreams, I immediately think about the American dream. Success, family, a house with a garden and a car. As I see things though, this lifetime dream has not just influenced the U.S. Americans, it remains an ideal for many people to the present day.

Wigley: “The American Way” shows how a dream can shape a city. At the beginning of the 20th century, for example, New York was the model of a dense but efficient infrastructure. For a long time, the whole world was inspired by its towering skyscrapers. Then after the Second World War there was a new dream that was entirely the opposite. American life was dispersed horizontally and spread out into the suburban areas. And so the suburbs became a model for other parts of the world.

Stadler: We also dealt with the subject of the suburbs in the Audi Urban Future Award. Our competition was about creating future visions for mobility and urban life. I have been the patron of this initiative since 2010, and was extremely overwhelmed by the density of the metropolitan areas we examined. Take the Boston­Washington region, for example, where 50 million people live in an urban area that stretches over 700 kilometers. That’s one giant metropolis.

Wigley: And what did you find out about suburbs?

Stadler: The architects Höweler + Yoon Architecture found out that there’s a great distinction between city center and suburb. So we have to find a way of abolishing this distinction in the future and of
restructuring things. After all, a house with a garden in a remote location with no links to public transport is not a practical place to live if this means standing in long traffic jams every morning and evening. This significantly impairs quality of life.

Wigley: Our dreams of skyscrapers and houses with gardens are out­ dated anyway in my opinion. The city of 2050 is coming towards us at high speed. When hurricane Sandy hit New York a few months ago, we finally became aware of how fragile our infrastructure has become. Bus links, rail lines, electrical and communication networks collapsed, hundreds of flights were cancelled. A state of emergency was even declared in Washington D.C. Sandy made it clear to us that the old American model has become very vulnerable.
Stadler: So that means we need a new dream.

Wigley: Exactly, and today the cities on the southern hemisphere are showing us what new forms of urban life we will need in the future. The infrastructure there is often more flexible and more responsive. Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East will be our teachers now. In other words, those parts of the world where cities are exploding at such an unprecedented speed and scale.

Stadler: When I think about Asia, it makes me think about my visit to Tokyo. Last time I was there I got talking to a young man who worked as an oshiya or pusher. His job is to push people onto overcrowded trains at railway stations, quite literally to force them on. And an overcrowded train is just one example of many. We are already facing maximum density in Asia today. In other words, there is hardly any room left to live in.

Urban planning expert Prof. Mark Wigley.

© Det Kempke / Double T Photographers

Stadler: Especially if we see how the population is growing. The total population will expand to up to nine billion people by 2050. That really sets my alarm bells ringing. We have to reorganize traffic flows, the food supply, electrical and communication networks. Basically the whole way that space is used.

Wigley: In the Audi Urban Future Award you asked five architects to investigate the mobility of the future. Do the visions they came up with offer potential solutions?

Stadler: Yes. The use of space was a central aspect of each case study. One team of architects focused on the Pearl River Delta in China. According to their vision, all the mobility and logistics will be put underground to make space for nature and people. The Urban­Think Tank architects from São Paulo presented a proposal where mobility is planned on several levels. In other words, houses, roads, trains and cars are inter­ connected. And I don’t just mean horizontally on one level, but also vertically and diagonally on several levels. The roads are built upwards rather like a skyscraper and all mobility systems communicate with each other. This three­dimensional mobility is like a network, a way of connecting people as efficiently as possible.

Wigley: I guess that for you one of the most crucial questions is where the car will fit into this network? I have the sense that the role of car and building will become more important in such interconnected struc­ tures. We don’t know what this new role will be, but we know that it no longer makes any sense to divide the car and the building from each other.

"I believe that this enormous density will force cities into a revolution in the future. If I walk 100 meters in the countryside I meet six cows and my grandfather. But if I am in a city, there are 100 people walking towards me, 1,000 driving past me to my left and countless others in the floors above me. The whole idea of mobility and urbanity is turned upside down."

^{Mark Wigley}

Stadler: The interconnection of people and mobility systems is becoming increasingly important. Basically it’s just a matter of time until cars, buildings, roads and traffic management systems communicate with each other. How often have I had to stand around waiting for an elevator? But why doesn’t the car simply give the elevator a signal when I drive into the garage? Then the elevator could be waiting for me before I even press the button. We have been working intensively for years on networking the car with its environment. The assistance systems of the future will be able to read road signs, actively intervene in hazardous situations and can avoid traffic jams, accidents and the search for a parking space. It is this kind of intelligent and, above all, efficient net­ working and communication that is, in my eyes, the key for the future.

Wigley: When you look at the great cities of the world, movements are always multiple and complex. The idea that somebody starts the day at home, goes to work and comes home again almost never happens. Our life is not simply straight from A to B. The car is in a sense one of many different overlapping mobility systems.

Stadler: That’s also one of the results of the Audi Urban Future Award. The proposal put forward by Höweler + Yoon Architecture is the “Last Mile Car.” The idea behind it is that people only use their cars for the last bit of the journey home. In other words, they use their own car on the edge of the city, but commuters switch to other mobility systems in the city center.

Wigley: Does that mean the trend is toward sharing?

Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of Audi AG.

© Det Kempke / Double T Photographers

Stadler: We can no longer simply sell cars and hope that the traffic problem will solve itself. We have to connect the road, the infrastructure and the car with other mobility systems. We need to get all the important stakeholders around one table and encourage them to fulfill their responsibility.

Wigley: What is so interesting for us is to understand how buildings and cars fit into this new world. In the future, I think there will be a new kind of space somewhere between the car and architecture, and this is the space the researchers will have to focus on. In the city of the future we have to think of buildings and vehicles as part of the basic infrastruc­ ture, if not the most important elements of a new dynamic system.

Stadler: By dynamic systems you mean the interconnection of different mobility systems?

Wigley: Yes, exactly. In the future we will have to interconnect every­ thing: buses, houses, elevators, cars. There are no limits.

"Just take a look at the young generation Y. They are much more flexible when it comes to what and how they share. You can see that with Houseshare.com, for example. Young people rent their apartment for three months to people they don’t know. The same happens on Facebook. Within a few seconds, people exchange information, photos and videos. Sharing is becoming a fundamental idea."

^{Rupert Stadler}

Stadler: I am convinced that people will want to remain mobile and be independent in the future. But we have to change something. When you see that commuters in São Paulo are stuck in traffic for more than 30 days a year on average, then that’s not a sensible use of time. Every time I’m in London I plan to take the Tube, because in a car I just stand still. The average speed in London is just 16 km/h. That is roughly as fast as with a horse­drawn carriage 100 years ago. You can’t really call that progress.

Wigley: Do you have a solution for the traffic problems?

Stadler: We are already trying to reduce traffic today with technologies such as piloted driving. In this context I also like to talk about “computing while commuting.” In other words, efficient commuting in a completely networked car that drives itself. Writing e­mails, scheduling appointments, making conference calls – none of that would be a problem. The car can be used as workspace or living space, just as you choose, all while on the move. In this way we can give our customers back some quality of life.

Wigley: Perhaps in the future a car will be just a room that can move? Some years ago we couldn’t even imagine how cars and buildings could communicate with each other, let alone how they might exchange roles. But the gap between the dream and reality seems to be getting smaller. Maybe it is this shrinking that has brought us together to do shared research into the mobility of the future. In a certain way we are professional dreamers and you are professional reality makers. But you can’t sell a car without selling a dream.

Stadler: A car is essentially a dream machine.

Wigley: And we have to consider what our dream for 2050 is. How will mobility look? What will interconnection mean? And according to what logic will the city function?

Stadler: I have many different visions in mind when I think of the city in 2050. Just imagine, 70 percent of the world’s population will then live in metropolitan areas. These visions and forecasts encourage us to actively accompany the journey into a mobile future with “Vorsprung durch Technik.” A future that is responsible and also fun at the same time.

This interview was first published in the Annual Report 2012: www.audi.com/ar2012

The video in German: Prof. Rupert Stadler (left), Chairman of the Board of Management of Audi AG, and Prof. Mark Wigley talk about 2050.

© Photo: Det Kempke / Double T Photographers | © Video: The Audi Urban Future Initiative

The compact, electric-powered microMAX is a networked swarm automobile

©Rinspeed

Mobile thanks to swarm intelligence

This approach was illustrated at the Geneva International Motor Show in 2013 by Rinspeed and Harman’s “microMAX” study. Here the compact, electric-powered microMAX is a networked swarm automobile. A decisive factor in this scheme is a cloud platform that collects all information about the swarm vehicles and their locations. Up-to-the-minute traffic conditions and the desired individual destinations of the mobile community are added in to this. The sum of this permanently updated data creates a kind of swarm intelligence, which then computes the most efficient and convenient route for each traffic participant and organizes shared travel with a maximum of four persons per vehicle. Potential participants only have to enter their destination into the smartphone app, and the rest is calculated in the cloud with its swarm intelligence.

Superpool's mobility concept for the Istanbul metropolitan area in the year 2030 as illustrated by Memed Erdener.

© Memed Erdener (illustration); Superpool (PARK project)

The architects at Superpool in Istanbul also took up the theme of a smartphone- based mobility solution in the Audi Urban Future Award 2012. Although there is already an iPhone app for traffic in Istanbul, it only provides information about the current traffic situation, leaving drivers to choose the best route themselves. Superpool’s idea is a smart system that helps drivers by calculating the best route on the basis of all information collected from traffic. As a smart satnav app it could represent a highly efficient traffic guidance system. The proposals also envisage wide availability of car sharing to solve the traffic chaos and the difficult situation with parking spaces, as well as creating more space in the city for people. Anyone who has experienced the gridlock in the center of Istanbul knows how urgently this city needs intelligent traffic solutions.

Istanbul on its path to the future

In Istanbul the visions are slowly becoming reality. YOYO Car Share is a newly established Turkish company that aims to change traffic, especially in Istanbul. According to its co-founder Berkman Çavuşoğlu, the experience of other cities shows that each shared vehicle can replace approximately 15 to 20 cars on the road. This relieves the pressure not only on individual traffic but also on public transport, and leads to an overall reduction of CO2 emissions. Çavuşoğlu is optimistic: “When all these advantages are taken into account, I believe private car ownership will be replaced by car sharing. And I think the change will be faster than what people imagine.”

Memed Erdener's "Each shared car eliminates 20 cars on the road."

© Memed Erdener

The prerequisites for intelligent car sharing are both the Internet and the smartphone. Only these enable the user to know exactly where an available vehicle is located. However, this has long ceased to be an obstacle. For Çavuşoğlu the big challenge lies in making it easy to access the vehicles. Getting hold of a vehicle has to be convenient, because everyone ideally wants to have one right on the doorstep. In the final analysis it is autonomous driving, when available vehicles really will roll up at the user’s door, that will produce the breakthrough for car sharing. – Nothing could be more convenient.

The IntrixTraffic App helps you to plan the best route

©Intrix

One small problem might nevertheless remain: the question of status. In some social classes the trend towards sharing extends to houses, apartments and cars. However, for most groups in society the car in particular remains a status symbol and an expression of individuality. A change in thinking in the cultural sphere would have to take place in order to make car sharing accepted and used by a broad mass of people.

The mobile vision of Rinspeed and Harman

©Rinspeed

The smartphone vision

In purely technical terms the vision of car-sharing in combination with the smartphone and autonomous driving is already feasible: Via a smartphone app a private or shared car is ordered to the user’s address. It comes right to the door by electric power from a garage or a distant car park. While this is happening we enter the destination into the app via voice command. The most efficient route is then calculated on the basis of all available traffic information. We get in the vehicle and are driven to the destination. On the way we can answer emails, make phone calls by Skype or stream videos. And if we want to, we can take other passengers with us on the route. At the destination we leave the vehicle, which autonomously looks for a place to park where there is an automatic recharging function on the basis of induction. There it waits for us until we need it again, if we are sharing the vehicle in a pool of users. Those who can afford it, and do not wish to be without their private space and their status symbol, possess their own car. All other city dwellers share vehicles as needed in a community: a convertible for the weekend, an estate car for making a trip to the Ikea furniture store, and a compact van with other passengers on the way to work. The instrument of communication that networks all of this together and can personalize it for us could be the smartphone. – This does not seem so very far away.

The first of February 1995 was the date, when the new Traffic Control Center was opened. Together with the University of Tokyo the metropolitan police they were establishing a system, which is at technologically the cutting edge of what is possible in managing traffic. Since then until now this is a very impressive monument of technology with up to ten meters height of giant displays, thousands of monitors and workstations. It is the heart of the Tokyo traffic management, where all the information gathered on the streets in and around this megacity is coming in, will be evaluated, processed and spread again as valuable information for the traffic participants. A service which is indeed very treasured by everybody who needs to mobile in greater Tokyo.

All the information, which is gathered throughout the area of greater Tokyo is collected within the traffic control center.

www.shifteast.com

“It was the former style to create a huge “centralized” system,”says Mr. Takashi Oguchi, one researcher at the Advanced Mobility research Center at the Institute of Industrial Science, which is part of the University of Tokyo. The scientist there give the project around the Tokyo Traffic Control center the scientific background for the next steps in this development.

Getting information was the first challenge

Naturally the technical possibilities have been improved in the last 17 years. The first step on the way to a more fluid circle of vehicles through the rush hour was the detection of the traffic. Via cameras, helicopters and patrol cars the amount and density of traffic was detected. Valuable information for sure, but the distribution was only possible via radio. But in regular case the information reached the people too late and too indifferent to avoid a traffic jam or conserve it from becoming worse. To gather information and build a picture of the situation on the streets is one thing. But to manage the traffic is a project, which is way more challenging.

Nowadays there are more opportunities for spreading information. It is an evolution which the traffic control center experiences and bringing it to more impact on the real situation. Ultrasonic detectors are gathering information, which is then spreaded within the network of the Tokyo authorities and in the private sector. “The detectors are allocated to be utilized for controlling the signals as well,” explains Professor Oguchi. “And their information is now also applied for producing 'travel speed' information.”

The selection of what is being viewed on the big screens ist flexible.

www.shifteast.com

The “travel speed” is the main output for the people of Tokyo. This number is an estimate of how fast one can bring a distance behind himself within a certain area. It is a forecast of what is the people expecting on their way to the office. Additionally a special radio channel for the center is sending 24 hours the news about the roads of the Tokyo metropolitan area, thousands of information displays are advising the participants to a good way around the zones with the worst problems and the center is able to manage 7000 traffic lights to give the column of cars the maximum of mobility possible.

Although the information collected from the streets has been improved during the existence of the center. 17 000 vehicle detectors and thousands of cameras are collecting even more information about the traffic on the streets of Tokyo. Together with the huge amount of other figures and data the bureau of metropolitan police, where the center is located in the administration of Tokyo, there is a good picture of the situation on the streets is evolving. 24 hours a day operators are processing the mountain of information to a picture on the big screens and provide the information.

Kind of a business case, but not profitable

And the information is spread and made available for private services: “The calculated 'travel speed' based on the detector information is sent to JARTIC (Japan Road Traffic Information Center, an incorporated foundation) where all japanese traffic information collected by public sectors is collected and processed in an integrated manner,” describes Mr. Oguchi. “JARTIC provides traffic information via internet, TV/Radio program, and also provides to private sectors at certain fees.” Last but not least there is kind of a business case as well in this project, naturally far away of being profitable. Only the administration is able to uphold and develop these huge amount of investments, which is needed for such a system.

A special way to bring the information to the people on the road is the VICS (Vehicle Information and Communication System), which is using the information provided by JARTIC to send traffic information to the vehicles equipped with the VICS onboard equipment. It was introduced parallel to the system of Tokyo in 1995 and is a nationwide system of intelligent traffic management. Via small boxes in every car the system is able to spread the actual information via special FM broadcasts, infrared or radio wave beacons. In this way the “travel Speed” and the additional traffic information is reaching the people in the cars on their way on the roads.

To keep an overview of the traffic in greater Tokyo is not easy. Even with the advanced technology of Tokyo Intelligent Traffic Management System.

www.shifteast.com

For sure the era of navigation systems and smartphones is bringing new opportunities to the Tokyo traffic management center. Nearly every car in Japan has a powerful navigation on board and a countless amount of apps are offering navigation services for the country. This is not only a way to bring more detailed information in the car. Future and more connected systems can be used to gather more information about the situation of and around the car. The problem is not the technology itself than questions of laws and standards, which are slowing down the speed of this evolution. And Professor Oguchi is looking forward to a paradigm change: “I personally hope that such kind of systems as the 'traffic control center' would become more decentralized, more flexible, and more resilient for any unexpected incident such as earthquake or tsunami disasters.”

The next big effort will be to guide each car individually through the labyrinth of highways, expressways and the innercity roads of Tokyo. The goal is to go into the navigation through the car systems itself, through smartphones and the traffic information boards on the roads. Every car should get a specialized and optimized route for every trip through the city. If this information is received by a critical number of participants there will be an impact of the traffic situation as a whole. But this will need a more close connection between systems like the VICS and other navigation systems in the car or on smartphones and other devices.

From information to warning

That could lead to further ideas like showing each car possible dangerous situations around the corner. Even in this case the first steps are done. For example a pedestrian walks over the road and the car which intends to turn into this street in a few 100 meters is given a warning about what happens around the corner. This is a possibility which could bring a more decentralized cloud system, which Mr. Oguchi is favoring.

Maybe in less than ten years it could be possible to leave the hands of the steering wheel while entering the Tokyo area and being driven by the car itself to the destination guided by the information of the Tokyo traffic control center. The time which is needed to go to work and back again could be used way more productive than guiding a car through stop and go. The technology is already there, problematic is the implementation such powerful systems in the widespread and versatile infrastructure of a modern city like Tokyo.

Even in this ideal of a more efficient future traffic jams will happen. A density of more than 5000 people within one square kilometer in a city of more than 12 million inhabitants in the greater area is not the framework to guarantee a fluid circulation of cars 24 hours a day. But it could help to reduce the pollution of the environment, raise the productivity and the quality of life for the amazing city of Tokyo.

"Shareway" concept by Höweler + Yoon Architecture

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

In their visions for the city of the future, Eric Höweler and his partner Meejin Yoon were occupied with finding solutions for the Boston/Washington region (“Boswash” for short). For example, they considered how it could be possible to overcome the separation between the city and the suburbs. And how commuting between home and the place of work in this area of heavy traffic could become more enjoyable again. In doing so their main vision is to fuse public and individual transport by means of a new kind of mobility platform. This platform in turn is intended to connect existing infrastructure with intelligent networks and flows of traffic.

The Audi Urban Future Initiative is taking forward the approach of the American architects in specific terms. The results will be made into a “city dossier” – a kind of operating instructions for the city of the future. In the process of creating this city dossier, a total of four workshops will take place in 2013 in which experts from AUDI AG, the curator Stylepark and the architects from Höweler + Yoon will exchange ideas.
In the first workshop in Ingolstadt, Eric Höweler recently talked with Audi experts from 14 different departments – among others Product Strategy, Design, Technical Development and Lightweight Construction. The themes ranged from information and infrastructure to energy, material and experience. As Eric Höweler said, “The purpose of the workshops is to find a holistic approach and to consider the problems from many different sides.”

Eric Höweler (Höweler+Yoon Architecture) at the first "city dossier" workshop in Ingolstadt

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

For Höweler the name “Boswash” expresses a new spatial connection that could gain its own identity – growing together through Interstate 95, the vital artery that plays an essential role in the proposals.

Workshop participants AUDI AG and Höweler+Yoon Architecture

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

In the very first workshop it became clear that it is important to have the courage to view the topic of future mobility from a wide variety of points of view and to take an interdisciplinary approach to the theme of mobility. Complex questions were posed, and consideration was given to the strengths of the region. Questions such as the following were at the forefront: What will shape mobility in this region in the future? How will people move about? And what dimensions will specifically need to be added to the concept of “mobility” so that it can face up to the challenges of the future?
In the coming weeks the Audi experts will consider in depth what contribution from their individual department could form part of a potential pilot project in the region. These contributions will then be compared with the specific requirements and needs of the region at the next workshop. It will be held in May 2013, on site in the Boston/Washington region.