Technology always plays a key role in the great challenges that are currently facing humanity. Talking about digital,
energy, mobility, climate, health or humanity in general, technology is mostly at the core. However, nowadays
challenges cannot be reduced to a mere technical data, either analysing or designing possible solutions. To
comprehend and face them successfully, all forms of knowledge are essential, from the techno-scientific field to the
human, social and artistic ones. The “Big Challenges” courses are an opportunity to examine with interdisciplinary lens a
number of relevant topics concerning humanity, focusing on technology and its key role on human living. In this
framework, all the courses will address the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a global initiative aimed at renewing
local and international policy.
The course aims to study land mobility (bicycles, cars, trucks, buses, trains) over the next 20 years. More specifically, the
possible ideas of green and electric propulsion will be analysed, as well as the growing influence of sharing and the new
business models (leasing, pooling, mobility-as-a-service), the integration with infrastructures and territorial
polycentrism, but also the subjective aspects of the choice of mobility (which will be evolving) and the influence of
current and future economic, cultural, and social dimensions.
Collective mobility (from cars to buses) in urban centres will see, in the next decade, an important transformation, with
an increasingly evident preference for the use of green means of transportation. This transformation creates not only
new technological challenges (materials, structural monitoring, electric and hybrid propulsion, autonomous driving,
traffic management, smart grids, ...), but also new infrastructure networks, a real 360° mobility, crucial for designing a
sustainable and ecological future. In this regard, the theme of infrastructure takes on a specific value, connected both to
citizenship rights and to people's work, settlement, and biographical choices.
However, each city will be different, both internally and in relation to the morphology of the surrounding territories, and
for this reason it will be important to place the individual and the territorial dimension at the centre of the
transformation, to better understand and predict the behaviours that will occur and the opportunities that shall
emerge. Large cities will have strategically planned their initiatives according to the future needs of citizens and it is
essential that both cities and people drive and guide this change. The administrations careful balance infrastructure
investments with solid urban mobility policies at the level of a large area and not limited on administrative borders and,
at the same time, propose awareness-raising initiatives. In this way, the citizens can see and increasingly choose electric
and/or hybrid vehicles also for their personal mobility, for a smart city with smart mobility from a smart home
perspective.
The "person", citizenship and territorial polycentrism will be at the centre of the transformation of city mobility, for new
technologies for reducing consumption and emissions. In addition, a look at the ethical, privacy and responsibility
aspects of the new mobility systems, which are increasingly integrated, connected, and important in data acquisition
and decision making. The analysis of future scenarios, with foresight methods, will allow us to focus on the
opportunities and obstacles that characterize the future of electric mobility, both individual and collective.