mobility4work. Mobility for the digitalized working environment

Under the heading “Industry 4.0”, a broad range of facts and possible developments in increased computerization and digitization are subsumed. These changes not only affect the industry in the narrower sense – as perhaps the label Industry 4.0 suggests – but also the services sector, which has so far been neglected in the public debate. Flexible working hours, such as a parting from the classic ‘nine-to-five’ working time concept, and increasingly flexible workplaces, such as new possibilities for working in the so-called “platform economy” or short-term rental of co-working spaces, allow for increased flexibility requirements of (public) traffic. Even so far ‘lack of flexibility’ is a central argument against the use of public transport. “Classic pendulum periods” could become increasingly obsolete in the future, and “mobility on demand” is one of the guiding principles for a demand-oriented transport offer. The future of work organization and organization is, in any case, a central framework for the demands on the mobility of the future.

The aim of the project is to prepare the mobility needs in a digitized work environment and the requirements of “Multimodal Lifestyle” in order to pave the way for new innovative concepts of personal mobility.

In order to continue to ensure the needs-oriented, usability and accessibility of the (public) transport system against the background of a digitized working environment, sound knowledge and concrete concepts of supply-side adaptations in personal mobility are considered as the basis for planning and development. In mobility4work, change processes and development potentials for passenger traffic are derived interdisciplinary:

• A social-empirical analysis examines changes in the labour market through industry 4.0 and (potential) effects on the personal mobility of workers / employees.
• Contexts and impact chains are empirically examined by means of case studies and the impacts on mobility behaviour are quantified by means of small-scale traffic generation models.
• In addition to this, the spatial and urban planning level is considered in the context of the expected increasing functional mixing of housing, work and mobility.
• In co-operation with the MobiLab OÖ, the development of “components, services, or overall system concepts for multimodal and integrated personal mobility offers” as well as new business models, which strengthen the competitiveness of the transport sector, are explored.

The project is conducted in cooperation with:

• Edeltraud Haselsteiner I URBANITY
• Harald Frey, Manuel Hammel I TU-Wien, Institut für Verkehrswissenschaften, Forschungsbereich für Verkehrsplanung
• MobiLab OÖ

The project is funded in the context of the programme “mobility of the future” by the Austrian Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency.