Ideas and solutions

Whilst urban conurbations were home to just 45 percent of the world’s population in 1995, this will rise to around 55 percent by 2020. In big cities in particular the transport infrastructure is insufficient and there is a shortage of parking spaces.

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The car will become less of a status symbol in particular amongst young people: today 22 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds in Germany focus on a car’s functional benefits and its emotional bond is on the wane.

The trend in saturated, highly-developed markets is moving away from car ownership and towards “shared cars” and networked transport concepts. At the same time the traditional car market is growing predominantly as a result of the strong dynamic in emerging economies. The conventional business model therefore needs to be expanded. As the inventor of the car Daimler seeks to promote both efficient and environmentally and socially sound mobility by deploying state-of-the-art vehicle concepts and contemporary communication technologies, thus optimising the effective use of existing infrastructures.

The company's mobility concepts at present comprise, in terms of private transport, the car2go and car2gether initiatives and, in terms of public and commercial transport, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), CharterWay and FleetBoard. In addition, the mbrace and @yourCOMAND systems show how today's communications technologies are helping to keep road users networked. In future, Car-to-X communication will also make it possible for vehicles to communicate with one another and so ensure that the traffic keeps moving in a way that least impacts on the environment.