Close to heaven: expressways in the center of Taipei

© Johanna Wittmaack

Taipei has a population of 2.6 million on an area of some 270 square kilometers; this means a density of almost 10,000 people per square kilometer. It is clear that a city like this needs an intricately branching and effective road network to prevent traffic from coming to a standstill. Those who visit the city for the first time may walk through the streets in amazement and be swallowed up by all the noise and bustle – and nevertheless immediately feel they have understood something of the city’s traffic system.

The highway leading into the city is accompanied by a second road, built approximately ten meters higher. On the main traffic arteries there are even up to four levels, layered one above the other. The sky-scraping expressways are especially impressive: they are fast routes leading through the city, but have only a few exits. If you miss an exit, you have to drive a long extra distance. In the middle there are main roads with somewhat more turn-offs; and at the bottom are the normal main roads, which branch out into a fine capillary system of side roads and tracks.

A sea of noise and tail lights

Moped riders wait in a zone reserved for them until the traffic lights change to green

© Johanna Wittmaack

Even on the normal roads, however, not all traffic is equal. For example, in Taipei buses run on special lanes. But even in the general mayhem of the public traffic lanes there is a hierarchy: moped riders are permitted to drive up to a zone specially reserved for them at traffic lights. To an outsider, who perceives the trend to smaller and smaller cars in European cities, it looks as if an attractive way has been found of inducing people to use the smallest vehicles possible – a moped carrying one or two persons instead of an almost empty car.

However, in truth the background to this is completely different, as Jason Chang, professor at the National Taiwan University and an adviser to the Taipei City Government in questions of transport policy and development, explains: “In the 1970s there was a significantly high number of accidents in Taipei due to the large number of mopeds and the confusing traffic situation. As a research assistant I therefore worked with a research group that was developing means of prevention. The stopping spaces in front of traffic lights were part of this: although the moped riders have priority, they have to wait for a special green light, for example, in order to make a turn off. We presented the scheme in 1985 – but the rule did not come into force until 1995. And then only because the chief of the Taipei traffic police at that time had listened to the lecture and was enthusiastic about the idea even then!”

Up to four road levels are layered, one above the other

© Johanna Wittmaack

Now the streets of Taipei have become unthinkable without this system, which gives visitors an impressive experience: when the light changes from red to green, it seems as if all hell has broken loose. As if in unison, all the engines roar, the moped riders sprint off, and the cars zoom along behind. A sea of noise and tail lights.

Higher, faster, further?

Could it be that the expressways too were originally built for a completely different reason than to divide the traffic as effectively as possible? “The first expressway was built to connect the first Taiwanese freeway to the city,” says Jason Chang. “But they have not been a success. They do not reduce the traffic during peak times. Apart from that they cut through the city and raise high the completely wrong people: those who drive a car instead of using public transport!” For him the future of traffic is therefore close to the ground, in the buses – and the metro system, which is entirely people-centered. In recent years the government has terminated two projects of elevated expressways in the city while putting bus lane and HOV (high occupancy vehicle) facilities on an expressway connecting city center and residential area.

If you are out and about in Taipei, you hardly notice them, in fact, because drivers do indeed use the lowest, multi-lane road most of the time, even though this involves hold-ups. It is unusual to get a “green wave”, i.e. the chance to drive through several traffic lights one after the other on green. Even outside the rush hour, cars stand in lines in front of and behind you, while mopeds snake their way through the stationary traffic. You benefit from the expressways only on trips to neighboring cities. In view of this, events like New Year’s Eve 2013, when the Taipei metro carried 2.06 million passengers in a single night, make it clear that expressways cannot be the solution for inner-city mobility.

Vision by Höweler+Yoon Architecture, "Shareway On The Platform"

© Höweler+Yoon Architecture

In Berlin and New York, too, traffic moves on elevated routes – however, they have never been used by cars, but by rail traffic. This is precisely the principle to which the architects Höweler + Yoon had recourse when they developed their proposals for the Audi Urban Future Award 2012. Their visuals show, for example, suspended rail vehicles that move through the city and make their mark on its appearance. However, the architects did not merely to take up existing concepts – they aim to make them fit for future needs, as workshops in the course of this year demonstrate.

In contrast to the expressways, their routes high above people’s heads are not made for individual traffic: they link the transport of goods and passengers. Trains will depart from a hub in Newark, according to their vision. Along the way individual modules can split off and use a many-branched network, until finally each part of the train reaches its destination. However, people and goods share the route for as long as possible. This reduces the environmental impact – and the noise of thousands of engines is abolished. If the system is sufficiently differentiated, roads as we know them could become obsolete; Höweler + Yoon have for example proposed a surface that could be changed as required from a road to a lawn.

"Shareway" concept by Höweler + Yoon Architecture

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

In Taipei, by the way, this has already happened – though once and for all. The metro stations have been designed to be as inviting as possible, and some of them have been greened. In contrast to the expressways they do not separate residents on the two sides of the street. They bring them together.

The European city with the highest proportion of traffic by bike: In Copenhagen one person in two pedals to work or school. 

Photo: Troels Heien   Source: www.kk.dk/cityofcyclists

No vehicle deserves a low-emission certificate as much as a bicycle. However, many people find it easier to get into the saddle in the country and in small towns than in that busy monster, the big city. Amidst the hooting and hassling there, it’s the car that wins when push comes to shove. And the fact is that in 2050, 70 percent of people worldwide will be living in cities and megacities. If a culture of cycling is going to hold its own in tomorrow’s cities, in order to ease the pressure on traffic and the environment, urban planners will have to take a good many things into consideration in future. Their aim is to make bike-friendly cities – places where cyclists feel safe and enjoy stepping on the pedals because they know it will be a pleasant journey. So what exactly is involved when an urban planner wants to make an automobile city into a bike city? “In principle you have to approach it in exactly the same way as you used to do for motorized vehicles, “ explains Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Steinebach, who has the chair of Spacial and Environmental Planning at the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern in southwest Germany.

“Like cars, bikes need their own lanes, which have to be marked and separated.“

^{Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Steinebach}

This can be done either in the form of special bike paths or by using so-called bike protection lanes that allow cycle traffic to flow along the street. This prevents bikes and motorized vehicles from getting in each other’s way, which makes the journey safer. In cities where he has seen good infrastructure for bikes, Prof. Steinebach has usually observed “a long tradition of cycling, favorable topographical conditions, planning for safety, and that cycling is rooted in society. When people in a city are used to bikes, they also behave differently towards each other. “Inconsiderate behavior and lack of interest in rules are often the issue between cyclists and other traffic participants.“ If you never see anyone on a bike, you don’t have the confidence to cycle yourself because of a stronger fear that people have no consideration for bikes and underestimate their vulnerability.

But there is much more to a bicycle city: For pedaling to be really fun, it is necessary to give it priority. For example, it is helpful to officially allow cyclists to use certain areas of a pedestrian zone or to go along a one-way street in both directions. “Often car drivers get angry about that. But they are forgetting one distinction: A cyclist moves by powering himself. If a car has to take a detour, the driver simply puts his foot on the gas pedal.“ One further ingredient that is essential in the recipe for a bike-friendly city is space. Cyclists have to keep a distance in order to be able to travel safely. In megacities like Istanbul, Mumbai or Shanghai this could become a problem, because there is too little space there anyway for all the people who want to get around. “You need more space for a hundred people on bikes than for a hundred people who go by bus.” Moreover, bikes are slower and the volume of traffic in kilometers is lower, while the distances in large cities can hardly be overcome on a bike.“Pedaling 30 kilometers to work just like that is not what people want. They would do that in their leisure time. Or perhaps with an electric-powered bike.“ Professor Steinebach thinks large metropolises are unsuitable for a further, quite different reason, as far as bike-friendliness is concerned: “I wouldn’t travel by bike there. Because of the air pollution alone. I often visit cities like Shanghai, and they have a lot of problems there with fog, smog and other pollution.”

Urban planners are considering what is the safest way to integrate transport by bicycle into city traffic, in order to increase the number of cyclists. 

Photo: Troels Heien   Source:www.kk.dk/cityofcyclists

Copenhagen, on the other hand, ticks all the boxes in terms of being bike-friendly. Cycling culture is thriving here. Half of the inhabitants go to work or school by bike. The Danish capital is regarded as a model for the whole world, as the bike-friendliest city. Bike paths, bridges, parking garages and highways characterize the face of the city. Marie Kastrup, the spokesperson of IBIKECPH.dk, attributes this in a video to the long history of cycling culture in Copenhagen: “Since the energy crisis in the late seventies, the city of Copenhagen has been investing massively in the bicycling infrastructure“. In this way the culture of cycling has grown in the course of years. The effects on life in the city are plain to see: People move about a lot without emissions and without taking up space on the roads for cars. People are healthy because they exercise and because the air is better, and also the natural environment in Copenhagen is less polluted than in other cities of a similar size. For transporting several people or large items, special solutions have been created that occupy the streets instead of cars. Occasionally you see a rickshaw rolling past, or one of the cargo bikes that the people of Copenhagen affectionately call a “Long John“. One major factor driving Copenhagen’s cycling project is the generally very high level of environmental awareness in Scandinavian countries, which is evident in numerous state subsidies to promote electromobility, for example.

The “Long John” cargo bike has been on the streets of Copenhagen since the 1930s. 

Photo: Troels Heien   Source:www.kk.dk/cityofcyclists

The USA, by contrast, is known for its automobile culture. However, the remarkable example of the city of Portland in the state of Oregon shows that there are alternatives. Portland is one of the few American cities where you don’t need a car. It has been described as the greenest city in the USA. Two components combined in planning the cycling infrastructure for Portland: The population was growing constantly, and across the board the state of Oregon had a high environmental awareness in its investments. In order to reduce the emissions produced by cars, an alternative means of transport had to be found that favored the environment: “Biking was something that really made that happen,“ as Rob Sadowsky, director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance of Portland says to US Today in a video. Last year Portland was again voted the number-one bike city in the USA by Bicycling magazine. This is despite the fact that it rains at least one third of the year there. Nevertheless, around six percent of residents commute to work daily by bicycle. The criteria for awarding Portland top status are its well-developed infrastructure for bikes (180 miles of bike paths on the roads and 79 miles of separate bike paths), a living cycling culture (parking spaces for bikes, repair workshops, and the ability to take bikes on trains). Jennifer Dill, director of the Oregon Transportation Research Institute, explains the city planners’ principle to US today in a video: “The planners here are not trying to force you out of your car, they are trying to give you an option.” So when people in Portland want to move from A to B, they can choose between the car, the bike or public transportation. “Instead of leaving in a place where the only reasonable decision is to drive your car. Which is the way many American cities are.” Rob Sadowsky points out a sign that that cycling has become rooted in society in Portland: “Some of the bars that have bicycle racks that replace one single parking spot with twelve are some of the most popular bars in town.“ It will be interesting to see how long Portland can stay in first place in the USA as the cyclists’ city, as other American cities are following its lead. Second place was awarded to Minnesota, which in 2010 was the first city in the USA to initiate a bike-sharing system and in 2011 opened the first “bike freeway” in the United States.

Experts are convinced that it is still possible to establish a culture of cycling in many cities. However, this does not happen on its own. Time and money are needed, and that is exactly what the cities most affected by traffic chaos do not have. Professor Steinebach too doubts that it is possible to increase the amount of travel by bike in big Asian cities in particular. “Because if, in planning terms and on a large scale, it is difficult to create a properly functioning network of public local transport, which does after all move large numbers of people much quicker, then I have major doubts about whether this will work for bikes.“ Nevertheless, it should be attempted, because the benefit to the environment, the thinning out of traffic volume, and not least the greater life expectancy are good reasons to start right away.

Markus Mechnich from Berlin, Germany

Why do you live in your city, and what fascinates you about it?

When I was still a child I got to know Berlin through my older brother. The ever-present Berlin Wall and the partition of Germany, history everywhere you looked, but also new departures, nonconformity, fresh ideas and new paths were apparent, indeed almost tangible, on all sides, even before German reunification. After reunification this process even accelerated. The city is reinventing itself in many places. This makes Berlin one of the most interesting and exciting of cities for me. At the same time this also makes it tiring. It means living permanently with things that are provisional and unfinished. What seems to be definitive today can be a building site tomorrow. Change is the continuum in this city. Exciting, but sometimes stressful too.

A traffic jam on the innercity highway. Less cars within the city borders could raise the level of quality of life.

© Rainer Jensen

How do you get around in your city?

Traffic is a big issue in Berlin, as it probably is in every other large city where millions of people have to move around every day. In winter the local train service breaks down, traffic on the urban highway queues up for miles every morning, and our wonderful new airport has become a bottomless pit, swallowing up billions with no certain opening date.

For me personally, however, getting around in Berlin works very well. That may be due to the fact that I travel short distances. To get to the office I go one stop on a local train or cycle for 10 minutes. Otherwise I am lucky enough to be able to work at home often. For longer distances or when speed is required, I have become a big fan of car sharing. Usually a car is available round the corner, and when I arrive I simply park it, in a parking garage even, or on a parking space that you have to pay for. Fantastic! Otherwise a bike is a good alternative. Berlin is not hilly, so exploring the city on two wheels is very pleasant and not really hard work, at least in the summer months.

For long-distance journeys it depends on the destination. For getting out into the country, the car is usually first choice. The bottlenecks here are the main arterial roads out of town, which are always congested during rush hour of course. Thanks to the Hauptbahnhof, the central station with excellent connections in all directions, the train is a good option. Due to the delays with the new airport, air traffic is still split between the two old airports. Cheap flights and charter flights take off from Schönefeld, the old airport of the GDR, and most of the others from Berlin-Tegel. A lot of people who fly often, as I do, like Tegel. No airport I know is easier to get around. It’s usually not even ten meters from the taxi to the gate. Where else do you get that?

However, the airport in what was the western part of Berlin has seen better days. It is old and run-down, and its only link to the public transport network is by bus. This is behind the times, especially for a capital city. When the new Berlin-Brandenburg Airport opens, everything will supposedly be better. It will have train stations, and it already has its own road link to the highway. But it is a long way out of the city. For me it will take almost twice as long to get there.

The new airport and the S-Bahn are two of Berlins biggest problems concerning mobility.

© Bernd Settnick

What are your wishes? What could be improved?

Many of my fellow citizens have much bigger problems than I do with the traffic in Berlin, so I am probably not representative. Despite that a lot of people will share my wishes. The local train system, the S-Bahn, is a never-ending problem that the politicians can’t get a grip on. I would also like to have less road traffic in the city. Many commuters from the outer suburbs already use public transport. This should be encouraged and the public transport services extended and improved: the inundation of cars coming into the city on the main traffic axes with their pollution and noise burdens everyone who lives in the city center.

For me personally, better facilities for cyclists would be beneficial. The roads in Berlin are not particularly bike-friendly, and many bike paths are in an awful condition. By contrast public transport, in spite of all the criticism, works fairly well. However the city authorities should invest more in it so that things stay that way, and they should improve security at the stations. And all the potholes in the roads need to be repaired after the hard winter that we had. Nevertheless, in comparison with other large cities Berlin has a high quality of life, not only as far as mobility is concerned.

The person:

• Name: Markus Mechnich
• Occupation: Journalist
• Age: 40
• Place of residence: Berlin Schöneberg

The City: Berlin

• Population: 3.5 million, the largest city in Germany by number of residents and area (892 km²)
• Population density: 3973 people per km²
• Vehicles: 324 cars per 1000 inhabitants, 721 bicycles per 1000 inhabitants
• Mobility mix: Motorized traffic – 31 percent; public transport – 26 percent; bicycle – 13 percent; pedestrian 30 percent
• Length of road network: 5419 km
• Length of public transport network: 1710 km.

São Paulo, an oppressive concrete wilderness.

©Martin Lewicki

An infinite sea of lights

The first time I saw São Paulo, the city showed me one of its most beautiful faces. As the plane came in to land by night, it presented an infinite sea of lights of incomprehensibly huge extent, bigger than anything I had ever seen. “So that’s what a metropolis of 20 million people looks like,” is what went through my head. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

In the city center on the next day, São Paulo transformed itself in my view into an oppressive concrete wilderness. I had never seen such architectural chaos before. Terrain that seemed to have been built on completely at random. Bridges, underpasses, streets, highways, offices and residences crowded together so densely that there was hardly any air to breathe. It is not only strangers who feel they are lost in and positively devoured by this megacity. It is noisy, it is hectic. Pedestrians are pushed around, hooted at, driven from the road. Might is right – that is the rule here.

It is noisy, it is hectic. Pedestrians are pushed around, hooted at, driven from the road.

©Martin Lewicki

A city full of contrasts

Contrasts are great here, and Paulistas are skillful masters of the art of living in chaos. While some survive on the street below, begging ceaselessly for money, above them others take joyrides by helicopter from one skyscraper to another. São Paulo is the city with the world’s highest density of helicopters, ahead of Tokyo and New York. No wonder: driving a car is not much fun in São Paulo. Traffic lanes are more of a recommendation than a strict regulation. Drivers here like to take a serpentine course that is often as rhythmic as a Brazilian swing of the hips. This feels lively, dynamic, restless, a mirror of the hectic city and its people.

Life in chaos

For newcomers to São Paulo, the traffic is extremely confusing. Passengers get thoroughly shaken up in the buses, get warned by shrill beeps in the Metro, and get shooed around the city by taxis. Whether on foot or in a vehicle, I have never really felt safe here, so high is the crime rate and so ubiquitous the threat. The authorities advise against walking any considerable distance after dark, especially in the Centro, the heart of the city. But not even a taxi is a place of safety. Attacks have often been made at red traffic lights. Therefore in São Paulo drivers are permitted to cross red lights slowly at night.

For newcomers to São Paulo the traffic is extremely confusing. 

©Martin Lewicki

Vision of a better tomorrow

Brazil seems to have rosy prospects for the future. Alongside China, India and Russia it is hailed as one of the world’s four most important growth markets. The football World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016 will certainly fuel this boom even more. But is São Paulo ready for it? How will the city cope with the inundation of visitors? How will people get from A to B? These are questions that require urgent answers in view of the present traffic situation.

According to the vision that Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner (Urban Think Tank) drew up for the Audi Urban Future Award 2012, means of urban transport in the future will be instruments of interaction that bring people together. Existing public spaces such as sidewalks and squares will be capable of conversion to a different function in an extremely short time, and will thus adapt to people’s varying needs. The city will become a communicative and flexible space in which the spotlight is not on moving around but on social interchange.

This vision is a stark contrast to the present reality: in the city that is Latin America’s biggest economic hub, everything revolves around transport. In the course of the economic boom, the population of cars has increased by a factor of seven in the last 30 years to more than 7 million. However, the road network has grown by only 18 percent over the same period. In consequence the average commuting time of employees in the greater São Paulo region amounts to about 2.5 hours per day.

Liberdade, the crowded japan neighbourhood of São Paulo.

©Martin Lewicki

The story told by figures like this suggests anything but an oasis of social well-being. What the city really needs are quick solutions that will help it to achieve greater efficiency and therefore a higher quality of life.

There are undoubtedly some positive signs, as a look at the main bus station, Estação Portuguesa-Tietê, shows. Passengers who arrive here and want to continue their journey via Metro have to wait up to half an hour to buy a ticket at the desk, because there are no ticket machines anywhere in São Paulo.

A solution for this is shortly to go into operation. From November 2013 Paulistas will be able to use their fingerprints as a monthly season ticket. The name of the system translates as “the finger of God”. Thanks to the use of scanners, it enables passengers to travel by bus or Metro, provided they have already bought a monthly ticket and their fingerprint was registered when doing so. One step on the path to the future for São Paulo.

Finally, pressure on the road network will be relieved by a new ring road, the Rondoanel.

©Martin Lewicki

Extend, connect and prohibit

The Metro system in São Paulo is one of the most modern in the world, but with only five lines and a network of 74.3 kilometers it is much too small. By way of comparison: the subway network in Berlin consists of ten lines with a length of 146 kilometers. Although it is only half as big as the Berlin subway system, São Paulo’s Metro carries three times as many people – 3.5 million daily. It is not difficult to imagine the crush during peak hours.

Logically, work is being done to extend the network in São Paulo. This is complemented by the overground rail system. In the coming years 160 kilometers of rail routes which were previously used only for freight will be made available for public passenger transport.

Finally, pressure on the road network will be relieved by a new ring road, the Rondoanel, which will be some 30 kilometers outside the city center and is intended to draw heavy trucks away from the inner ring roads through its connections to all long-distance routes.

Since 1997 a special strategy has been in operation to reduce the amount of traffic in the city center. On working days during the peak traffic periods, from 7am to 10am and from 5pm to 8pm, vehicles whose license plates have two specific final digits are not permitted to enter the city center. To make things fair, the “prohibited” numbers are changed daily.

All of this can be no more than a start. When football fans invade the megacity next year, São Paulo will have to come up with further solutions. Even more visions, like those of Urban Think Tank, are required to provide a better quality of life for this restless city of workers. Otherwise the future will be even more “brutal” for its residents and visitors.

The members and their role at AUDI AG

Larissa Braun

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

“In the city of the future, new players will take on a decisive role. Networking the automobile with data services in the urban environment will change the car’s function. It will become an assistant to the driver.”

— Larissa Braun, Head of Communications Culture and Trend

Nadine Endress

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

"The need for mobility in cities will continue to grow. As a premium manufacturer we would like to offer the customer appropriate solutions that combine urban mobility with positive experiences.”

— Nadine Endress works in the field of Brand and Customer Strategy on the subject of mobility services

Lisa Füting

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

”The car and the city need to enter into a new relationship. In this task we take account not only of technical, but also of social, political and aesthetic matters. This enables us to engage in new, sustainable thinking.”

— Lisa Füting is employed in the field of Communication: Culture and Trends, where she works on the Audi Urban Future Initiative project.

Christian Labonte

© AUDI AG

“I believe that the discussion on urban mobility will shift its focus back to the individual. I am absolutely convinced that we, as a premium manufacturer, will contribute to that development, particularly in the context of autonomous driving.”

— Christian Labonte is responsible for Design Strategy.

Annegret Maier

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

“Society is changing and we as a premium manufacturer have the opportunity, but also the responsibility, to redesign things. That also includes completely rethinking the border between private and public transportation, for example.”

— Annegret Maier works in Product Strategy, focusing on connectivity and the planning of new vehicle projects.

Felix Schwabe

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

“In 2050 more than two thirds of the world population will be living and working in metropolitan regions. We ask questions such as: What will their residents need in future in order to travel from their homes to their places of work? What will it mean for them to be mobile? And: What challenges will we have to face in this respect?“

— Felix Schwabe is responsible for innovation management for Audi production within the area of Technological Pre-Development.

Dominik Stampfl

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

“I believe that the distinction between mobility and the city as we have experienced it in the last decades will cease to exist in the future. More and more, things will start growing together.”

— Dominik Stampfl works in Corporate Strategy.

Klaus Verweyen

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

“The desire for individual mobility will continue to exist, even in cities. In the future too there will be not just the one city, but rather many different kinds of cities. From the many possible solutions that could be found, our challenge will be to filter out the ones that are right for Audi."

—Klaus Verweyen is Head of Productstrategy, Innovation and Attribute Planning.

Attila Wendt

© Audi Urban Future Initiative

“For many people, automobility is an emotional experience with extremely diverse facets. The challenge consists in making it possible to experience auto-mobility in emotional terms in urban surroundings in the future, too.”

— Attila Wendt is employed in Technical Development on chassis frames.

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.

On Mumbai. In the past two decades, Mumbai has seen some of the most innovative policies, institutional arrangements, and projects planned to produce efficient and equitable urban systems for an intelligible future. Large-scale infrastructure projects, cross-subsidization of housing, geographical and demographic information systems, and new urban (re)development policies are being put in place. But Mumbai, like any city, is a composite body, where spaces, identities, and forms constantly blur. Here, no form of policy, governance structure, or infrastructure can provide a platform for different groups to pursue their aspirations equally. Rather, they unsettle the city; create new ruffles, new possibilities, new actors, and new relationships. But the act of blurring creates interstices with high transactional capacities. It forms the logic through which the city opens for many to use and create their many futures.

On tools. The response to such an urban future is not to articulate a single idea of the future, but rather formulate tools that can be used and modified by different urban actors to negotiate with the emerging contradictions and alter their urban surroundings. These include tools to blur the social and physical edges to allow for higher transactions, tools to help create and harness new economic opportunities, tools to engage with the environmental crises, and tools to make the city livable for the elderly. The future city then becomes a site open for different actors to use, claim, and appropriate in order to pursue their desires and mobilize their own futures—a city open for multiple futures. Mobility is about navigating different ecosystems of the city to make one’s own future.

What is green mobility?
Lincoln Paiva: Green Mobility, from a "means of transportation" point of view, maybe understood as cleaner and more efficient vehicles. From a broader point of view, green mobility is a set of indicators involving planning, energy grid, technology, traffic control, infrastructure, and transportation systems providing a better quality of life for people and causing less economic, social, and environmental impact. Green mobility is not a goal in itself. The modern urban way of thinking conceives mobility as a means to provide urban and social development to the population in an ecological way or, in other words, with as little environmental impact as possible. We cannot think of sustainable urban mobility only as the transportation systems (transporting people) and energy. The purpose of sustainable urban mobility is to provide local development.

Your company, Green Mobility, is meant to play a key role in promoting strategies and projects for sustainable urban mobility that combine both private and public initiatives. How does this work in Brazil? In particular, how does Green Mobility operate? 

Paiva: We have been advising Brazilian cities to develop a more sustainable transportation policy and culture. The major challenge has been breaking paradigms about the low, medium, and high capacity transport systems, emphasizing the importance of creating a high-capacity network and not only systems. The cities have been implementing the wrong options, by taking only under consideration the data concerning passenger demand and neglecting socioeconomic issues, therefore leaving thousands of low-income people out of the transport system because of the tariff fees. 



Lincoln Paiva is founder and president of Green Mobility.

Courtesy of Lincoln Paiva

You did research on workers' modes of dislocation in part of São Paulo's service industries. Please describe your research and the specific actions that are being taken by the companies and their workers.
Paiva: The companies are still not willing to invest their money before they have a positive signal from the cities. Regarding projects involving the private sector, it will be important for cities to develop public policies that favor private investments. For instance, for a company to encourage people to go to work by bicycle, the city has to invest in infrastructure such as bicycle parking areas, bicycle paths, and security and also offer benefits so that the workers feel comfortable with the idea of pedaling a bike, exercising, and having a more positive attitude toward using the car less often.

In São Paulo, what types of operational and structural measures, in terms of sustainable urban mobility, are possible in the short and long term?
Paiva: The first thing to do would be to develop a municipal urban mobility plan, based on a more sustainable transport policy with short-, medium-, and long-term visions. Without it, it's virtually impossible to determine an emergency action plan. If you don't know where you are going to, all paths are alike.

Another of São Paulo's current challenges is the disarticulation between the pattern of land use and mobility, as for example the fast-paced construction of high-rise buildings and other large-scale developments. What are the socioterritorial and environmental consequences for the city and its inhabitants?
Paiva: I recently took part in a debate with [staff members of] São Paulo's municipal urban planning company. According to them, São Paulo is not among the most vertically dense cities in the world. I don't agree with the high-density proposals by urban planners, or in other words, the concept of Compact City, which is widely discussed in cities. In developing countries, this has caused islands of poverty and underdevelopment, because urban transport and work aren't dealt with as part of urban and social development, [which] will have to be [done as] part of a project involving several state-level departments. And that kind of cooperation is nonexistent in Brazil.

The World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016 could be remarkable opportunities to set up new paradigms for sustainable cities in Brazil. How are mobility issues being handled in the cities involved? Are there areas for innovation? 

Paiva: There's no innovation as far as I know. Unfortunately, the Brazilian cities will miss out on those excellent opportunities. What we nowadays foresee in terms of transport projects has to do with the implementation of Bus Rapid Transit. But, I insist, that one transport system is not going to solve the problems of Brazilian cities. Public officials do not understand that these two events can attract tourists, resources, companies, investment, and development. Their vision is focused on transporting people. I liked the idea of building the soccer stadium in the eastern zone [of São Paulo], but I haven't seen any project for local development or for the city's transport system. The subway is already there, with capacity for sixty thousand people per hour each way. Aside from the money to build the stadium, there will be no other investment in the transport system.

How can Brazilians improve their quality of life and make healthier cities?
Paiva: São Paulo has got a minority of upper-middle-class and better-educated people, especially youngsters between nineteen and twenty-five years of age, who understand that, in order to improve quality of life, it will be necessary to change the lifestyle that is deeply influenced by North-American consumerism, especially the car as a status symbol. With the improvement of the economy and encouragement from the federal government, a considerable part of the population can afford to buy a car. It's not fair that people have to give up on an asset that was widely promised as a symbol of achievement and status and go back to riding a bus or walking. So, as I see it, the wealthiest population in the city will have to give up driving their cars, because 80 percent of the drivers live less than ten kilometers away from work. However, the city must rethink its mobility strategy, by providing different means of transportation for short distances that can be used instead of the car. Alternative types of transportation are practically nonexistent in São Paulo.

How do you see the relationship between the automobile industry and urban planning and architecture?
Paiva: The automobile industry's vision of the city's future is a false promise in terms of urban planning. It's technological cities like in The Jetsons cartoon: The car talks to the driver, appears to be people's best friend, solves all the daily problems, moving around among glass-enclosed buildings and empty streets. We aren't searching only for more security, technology, or better energy efficiency. The industry will have to accept that its purpose is not only transporting people in a more efficient and environmentally sustainable way, but to offer solutions for the accumulation of cars in the streets, which makes driving itself difficult, slows cities' development capacity, and impairs quality of life. No one wants to slow down car sales, but, in the future, not everybody will own a car and not everybody will be able to drive their car at the same time. The industry needs to understand its responsibility to introduce private transportation as one of the solutions for the implementation of a network of transportation systems in a city. Automobile manufacturers are wasting their time and sources thinking in terms of imaginary cities that will never become real. It is necessary to rethink the current model of individual transportation.

How is climate change influencing public policies and private-sector initiatives in Brazil in terms of urban mobility? What are the main differences compared to other countries? 

Paiva: Brazil could be a leader in this area due to its low rank in the list of countries with the highest motorization rates. In order to reach for that [goal], it is necessary to foster the development of new technologies that would enable a more comprehensive understanding of the public transportation systems and to create new systems oriented toward our own reality.

On urban futures. Ideas about future cities have been dominated by two imaginations: First, of a utopian coherence unified by robust information systems and coordinated by super infrastructure; and second, a city engendered by catastrophes of environment, poverty, and deterioration. Inherent in these imaginations of coherence and catastrophes is the idea of time as a singular linear rhythm, of space as an entity with fixed coordinates and of people as homogeneous and inert mass. The city, on the contrary, multiplies time(s), blurs boundaries, mixes categories, provides platforms, builds connections, and opens up probabilities to transact–creating possibilities for divergent future trajectories. To talk of "a" future for cities, be it utopian or dystopian, forecloses the possibilities that cities open.

CRIT on multiple urban futures.

© CRIT

On urban mobility. When mobility is seen as transport, it ends up in a problem-solving exercise that produces either mega projects, intelligent vehicles, or infrastructures that claim to be intelligent. Within the urban realm, the concept of mobility needs to be understood beyond transportation, as transportation itself is embedded in the multiple processes that shape the city. For CRIT, mobility is a twofold concept. First, it involves the different kinds of movements that are brought about by urban transformations today. These include access, migration, gentrification, class movement, etc. And second, mobility or to mobilize is the ability to navigate the complex urban ecosystem of geographies, legislations, claims, powers, relationships, and information to construct one's path amidst these movements.

Mumbai rootstock

Over the last decade Mumbai has undergone a radical process of economic change. The large manufacturing industries, which until the 1980s constituted the base of the metropolis’s production system, have given way to new business and manufacturing entities. Mostly small in size, these enterprises have rapidly spread throughout the urban fabric. These various agents of change have adapted to the city’s giant discontinuous structure, connecting to one another and acting like a rhizome. The transformations occurring in Mumbai, similar to those observed in other major industrial cities across India, from Calcutta to Ahmedabad, provide the context for the work of CRIT, an Indian research group that offers a plural and collective picture, just like the phenomena they observe.

Pleasantly disordered

Grafting itself onto an urban and social landscape whose layers have been built up over the course of generations, Mumbai’s new economic system has generated unusual forms of work, life and movement. Crowded trains and traffic jams have appeared in unexpected places at unusual times, bedrooms have been turned into offices and shanty towns into company networks for branded goods; teachers have become insurance brokers and architects property developers, and so on. Similar changes have affected the morphology of the city: the skeletons of old disused factories have rapidly given way to shopping centers and retail outlets, lagoon areas have become housing developments, old neighborhoods have been replaced by tower blocks of apartments, and large dumping grounds have assumed the guise of outsourcing complexes for foreign businesses. Mumbai has absorbed these new models with difficulty but with considerable generosity, generating a “pleasantly disordered” urban system, an undefined, mutating, rarefied city whose pattern is continually erased and at the same time rewritten by the myriad of players who inhabit it.

High-intensity cities

In Mumbai, the growth and fragmentation of economic activities has given rise to a more intense pace of life and work, linked more to the nature of new practices than an actual increase in the number of people working. The transformation, for example, of a traditional mill for weaving cotton into a business services center with the same number of staff can spark a giant increase in the amount of information exchanged, procedures and controls carried out, as well as the number of people and vehicles coming and going. The authorities have often responded to the system’s changing speed by planning large-scale transport infrastructures. Motorways, bridges and flyovers have thus been quickly overlaid onto landscapes made up of old residential neighborhoods, markets, disused factories and forests. This process has frequently involved forcing large numbers of people to relocate, pushing up the price of land and buildings and increasing land consumption. In turn, each project has generated further demand for new infrastructures, setting off a cyclical process that has turned Mumbai into a place of perpetual renewal.

The determinist paradox

Traditional practices and theories for analyzing and planning cities using deterministic methods and linear projections into the future are based on the assumption that the results are always articulated and predictable. Deriving from this approach, the numerous major “modernization” schemes have been realized using tools and processes that are insensitive to local specificities. In the name of factors such as “efficiency,” “capital” and “the greater common good,” countless requests and claims have been sacrificed, leading to a disavowal of age-old acquired rights. However, the effects induced by such interventions on a complex urban network where many aspects are intertwined—linguistic, physical, social, institutional and economic—have in many cases assumed completely unexpected forms and characteristics. In Mumbai, deterministic projects, programmes and policies have often acted in a completely different way to that which was planned, revealing a “second life” in contrast with the theoretical principles that generated them.

Taking your nose away from the screen

In contrast with the deterministic approach, the work ofis based on a subtler look at urban conditions, centered around understanding the complexity of claims and networks. Observing Mumbai, and the contemporary city in general in its hic et nunc, is like watching a film with your nose pressed up against the screen—all you can see is just a few pixels (a metaphor used by Salman Rushdie in his novel Midnight’s Children). Exponents of CRIT maintain that it is therefore necessary to take a diversified view and come up with processes of intervention with fluid edges that allow for the movement, transformation and osmosis of the various factors. It is a practice that needs to be tactical and fairly agile, where necessary, in order to bring about a radical change of direction.

This text is based on a conversation between Guido Musante and CRIT.

The article was first published in DOMUS, issue 959.