Research Focus  Mobility and Life-style Analysis

Mobility is a subjective need and a societal necessity. In the 1990’s research priority was given to the subjective and socio-cultural motives behind auto-mobility. Here ISOE, with its mobility style approach to research, was a forerunner. Today mobility research that wishes to pursue a transdisciplinary approach faces new challenges:

• Freight transportation, organized according to a logic governed by the needs of individual enterprises, yet sharing for the most part the same infrastructure as individuals.
• Tourist air traffic, reaching new target groups and destinations by offering cheap flights, but whose growth can only be sustained by means of subsidies.
• Ground traffic in Western Europe, which is buffeted by the varied effects wrought by demographic change. Here it is not just a question of problems such as the financing of short-range public transportation and its use. Demographic change also opens up new possibilities: The traffic infrastructure for autos can be used differently. Instead of over-regulation and a forest of traffic signs one can imagine common uses of space and the creation of amenity values for all residents.
• The finitude of oil reserves (peak oil) and the increasing perceptibility of climate change, which are leading to irreversible, long-term political and economic decisions. Unstoppable social change is tied up increasingly with a vision of a changed mobility culture. Emissions free engines become standard. For many young people, growing up no longer means getting a car or motorcycle.  

Today there are – given the technical and social transformations underway and in face of global ecological problems – real chances of change. In light of this a transdisciplinary mobility and traffic research approach is in a position to offer badly needed core competencies:

• Integrated traffic behavior and environment research.
• Topic specific life-style research in the area of ‘sustainable consumption and production.’
• Linking life-style research to questions raised by spatial planning.
• Comparative analysis of urban/regional mobility cultures.
• Market and target group research for new products and concepts in public and private transportation.
• Sharing of target group experience and its results in the context of communication and marketing measures.   

Contact Person:

Dr. Konrad Götz

goetz@isoe.de

• Imprint
• I
• Webmaster