Ideal city favours people over cars, says BMW

BMW is playing an active role in mapping out future mobility in cities and the official beginning of operations in its newly-created Centre of Urban Mobility Competence (CUMC) marks a new step forward.

With the development of electric car-sharing systems as an underlying principle, CUMC works with cities and relevant stakeholders to clarify the way the future could (and should) look in terms of transport.

BMW’s vision sees future cities with fewer parking spaces and more public spaces, fewer people owning their own cars and more people using electric vehicles (EVs).

In Germany, car-makers with EV aspirations are supported by government policy. Legislation favours users of car-sharing over private-car users through the offering of privileges such as the provision of exclusive, designated EV parking areas.

This is all based on the fundamental understanding that car-sharing is good for cities: It contributes to a lessening of traffic and, properly managed via seamless intermodal connections, can be made to integrate efficiently with existing public transport systems (via a car’s navigation system that integrates with public transport schedules so you can coordinate your arrival time to jump onto a bus, tram or bike).

Clearly EVs are a vital part of the future strategic roadmap that BMW has mapped out through to 2020.

With the aim to be the “leading supplier of premium products and premium services for personal mobility worldwide”, the company has a multi-faceted approach that factors in elements other than car-sharing and EVs.

Central to this is the increasing use of real-time information that not only helps navigation around cities, but also advises on things like the best parking possibilities.

This can help reduce the familiar sight of drivers creating congestion by circling the streets looking for a parking spot (on a more – perhaps sinister – note, the accurate pinpointing of high-demand parking areas allows the possibility of selectively upping parking fees).

BMW is addressing this via its 'ParkNow' system that helps navigate to available parking spots, as well as 'ChargeNow', that enables drivers to electronically and conveniently pay parking fees in advance, while providing the benefit of having fewer ticketing machines.

The company has been active in EV car-sharing for some years, and has been offering 60 ActiveE cars in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich since 2013 as part of a combined research project. These have been replaced by 100 new-generation i3 models under the DriveNow scheme, an initiative that has been followed up in London, where i3s have been added to the DriveNow fleet.

In all, BMW DriveNow has added a claimed 470,000-plus global customers in the last four years, 430,000 of which are in Germany.

DriveNow MD Nico Gabriel said: “This initiative has enabled us to put around 3000 people per month behind the wheel of an all-electric vehicle for the first time – and, in so doing, spark their enthusiasm for electric mobility.

"The introduction of the BMW i3 into our fleet is the logical next step, and will soon be followed by a range of others in Germany, Europe and around the world.”

According to BMW, it’s important to sustain quality without creating negative consequences: “The top priority of the Competence Centre is to safeguard mobility for all users at its current level at the very least. Deprivation or coercion are not an option. Instead, the types of mobility available will be improved and coordinated so effectively that people will adopt them as a logical consequence.”