Dr. Christoph Demuth held a presentation about “Mobility in a Smart City” at E-day

Vienna March 6th, 2014 – eDay 2014 – Christoph Demuth, managing partner of Demuth Business Partner and Stratum Traffic Engineering, has recently been a speaker in a SMART city panel held at E-Day, which was organized by the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. The event was held in Vienna on the 6th of March and focused on the role of e-commerce in modern society.

The topic of Dr. Demuth’s presentation was “Mobility in a Smart City”, which discussed questions about existing structural problems within urban areas; which solutions the smart city concept provides; and how innovative technologies and transport policies generates sustainable economic growth. As Dr. Demuth stated, investments in Human Resources, transport Infrastructure as well as Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) enables sustainable economic growth and increases quality of life in a smart city.

Stratum Traffic Engineering, in cooperation with NGO ConnectBaltica, performed a survey in preparation for the presentation, the results of which were also presented. The results of the survey showed that 81% of respondents from nine countries heard of the term “Smart City”. Moreover, Free Public Internet Access and Environmental Sustainability are the most important attributes of a smart city for the respondents. It was also seen that the use of various modes of transport will increase mobility in urban areas, whereas public transport will become more and more important. In the future, cities will have to perform efficient parking management considering on-street and off-street parking, whereas “pay-as-you-drive” and/or “pay-as-you-park” principles will be implemented in the future. Even the implementation of congestion charging system will become part of a smart city concept. It is also expected that so called “mobility account” will be implemented enabling the mobile citizen to identify either by using a car or by walking using various transport services.