Naturally, a human being is mostly in motion striving to meet its different daily needs. This is where established transport systems, including transport infrastructure, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, planes, and ships come in handy. With them, people are able to move from one place to another conveniently and easily. The role of transport has been recognized as an integral part of sustainable development since the United Nations Earth Summit in 1992.
What necessitates Green Mobility?
Public transport has majorly been used in large cities and towns hence bringing on congestion and massive traffic jams. Public transit being the most readily available and affordable mode of transport, runs on a high level of fuel consumption. The fuel efficiency principle is compromised due to the high demand for fuel by the automotive in public and private transport. Fuel extraction has to be scaled higher to meet this increasing fuel need. But this intervention is enough though as environmental degradation continues to wreak havoc where transport sector stakeholders and the government have not gone an extra mile to address the increasing demand and use of petroleum products.
Worse still, when the fossil fuels used in cars burns, they produce high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The gases produced by these vehicles i.e., smoke and carbon emissions, lead to air pollution in our surroundings. Eventually, these lead to the negative environmental impact that has a potentially devastating impact on people’s quality of life. When people inhale those greenhouse gases and carbon emission they get more susceptible to deadly diseases, such as lung cancer, which might turn out to be fatal.
People and good transport on air, water, road and rail account for about 25% to 30% of the total energy consumption worldwide. As such, one of the best ways to reduce energy consumptions that leads to high cost of living and environmental degradation is targeting the transport industry-providing cheaper and eco-friendlier alternatives to petroleum, diesel and gasoline fuel, or finding ways for improving energy efficiency. These are some of key issues that green mobility seeks to address.
Green mobility background
In the last few years, different countries have tried to devise ways to make various modes of transport more efficient and environmentally friendly. That is where green mobility was conceived. Green mobility involves adopting sustainable modes of transport that facilitate safe fulfillment of commuters’ basic needs and in consistent with ecosystem health. The concept’s debut took place in Copenhagen.
The positive impact
Green mobility has triggered immense innovation in the transport industry, resulting in variety of eco-friendly transport options. These new options are remarkably energy-efficient. A good example, in this case, is the use of high speed electric vehicles and trains. These electricity power-driven automobiles and trains can be recharged after the moving from one place to another using electric power. This makes them more cost-efficient to operate as compared to the traditional petrol, gasoline or diesel autos and trains.
Better still, the electric options, unlike their petrol, diesel, petrol and gasoline counterparts, do not produce any gases that could pollute the environment. As such, some countries have adopted this new transport technology in their bid to ensure that public transport is more accessible, affordable, and environment-friendly. Besides, these transportation systems, particularly electric trains are real deal for mass movement needs, mostly in large cities and other urban areas that are struggling with air pollution problems and massive traffic congestion.
Embracing green mobility projects would help reduce the number of motor vehicles around city areas, increased congestion, and massive traffic jam during home drive hours. Since electric trains are relatively faster than the regular train, people who value speed in their mobility don’t have to have their personal cars on the road to reach their destinations- the train meets their need. With increased traffic flow, the interaction of two cars at a certain point will be easy to study. As such, it will be much easier for travelers and transport service providers to determine how fast one can travel from a particular city location to another.
Different countries like Denmark, India, and the United States of America have adopted some of these modes of public transport. The ability to have different ways of transportation in a country provides different transport options to their people hence enabling them to make informed choices on the best fit for them, as far as their mobility is concerned.
Support of SDG goals
The idea behind the conception of Green mobility is to realize three components of the global sustainable development goals (SDG). These components include affordable and clean energy, industry innovation and infrastructure, and climatic action. It is viable in any large city in any country. The ultimate goal is to see very city become a green zone where anyone can move from one point to another hassle-free, irrespective of whether they have private means of transport or not. In case anyone feels the need to move, they just need to use their smartphones to register their details, including driving licenses. From there, they will be informed of how many electric cars are accessible to them.
Green mobility is supported by various public transport mobile apps. For instance, when booking a trip, a commuter uses such a mobile app to tell the relevant transport service provider the errands the want run and how many stopovers they need to make during the trips they’re booking. Some cities are leveraging on the mobility data derived on these apps to track COVID-19. Besides, some mobility-related companies such as MOTIONTAG have developed various solutions to promote carbon footprint reduction in the transport sector.
The goals of green mobility are to integrate cars, buses, and trains, creating efficient transport systems. Laying down the strategy of using electric-powered vehicles, the train is an excellent way to curb carbon emissions. The reduction of carbon and smoke pollution in urban areas can improve air quality when breathing without inhaling toxins. Striving to reduce energy consumption in the area of road traffic and having a carbon-free town can become a reality through the coordination of numerous measures to increase energy efficiency. Therefore, it’s advisable that countries that care about the wellbeing of the environment and their citizens implement sustainable green mobility solutions. This will be a great milestone towards the achievement of safe and sustainable mobility that will have a positive impact on the current and future generations.
MOTIONTAG is among the companies that have been at the forefront in supporting green mobility. You can be an engine for this positive mobility change by adopting the sustainable engagement solutions offered by MOTIONTAG.
