On the development of a sustainable and fit-for-the-future transportation network

Abstract

Population growth in cities and expanding city territory as well as population decline in rural areas pose a challenge for the existing transport network. Consequently, we observe a rapid change in transport infrastructure and transportation technology within the last few years. Due to novelty or differentness, it will initially be challenging to integrate them into the existing network in Western European cities and to identify suitable corridors leading to especially beneficial effects on the overall transport network. The effects of new technologies and (high-performance) infrastructures are hardly examined. It remains unclear how these novel transportation technologies will change society, our understanding of spatial proximity, mobility, and consequently the logistics sector. In this work, we give an overview regarding first considerations and reflections on the impacts of the changes and developments in the field of freight transportation. Our work mainly focusses on the estimation of the impacts of high-performance transport technologies on the society, spatial proximity, and the logistics sector while extending the European transportation network accordingly. In our understanding, we refer to high-performance transportation technologies as mobility systems with either high throughput (fast and/or high utilization loads) or very flexible application. To be more specific, we focus on Hyperloop technologies, Cargo-Sous-Terrain, freight airships, and drones.