The Mass Mobility Future

By Dr. Georg Schlueter

Today’s Digital Technologies and Transformation trends offer theme parks the greatest business opportunities ever. While digital education programs for “children of all ages” offered by a theme park provide for strong learning, the theme park itself can indulge in the Industry4.0 trends and become the most important learning platform for the most difficult transformation that our society will ever experience.[1]

With the emergence of Digital Technology, conflict-burdened phenomena can be transformed into conflict-free solutions. It is not enough anymore to improve the old; completely new ecosystems must be created to overcome old paradigms. Advanced technologies[1]are breaking down old paradigms into their elements to visualize the issues associated with them. Secondly, the methodologies pave the way toward a transparent visualization of new conflict-free sustainable ecosystems.

Because of the revolutionary new solutions thus obtained, significant training is required for the personnel involved. In some cases, the new solutions can be completely automated so that human behavior does not matter anymore. However, in some cases, it is not possible to separate human behavior from the issues to be resolved. For example, the traffic flow on our highways and freeways is such a situation where the behavior of people will remain a controlling factor for traffic flow dynamics. As we gradually progress toward autonomous driving, we may end up with a mixture of active and passive human driving where the human component can be present at different levels. And even when full autonomous driving is considered, we need to remember that the human driver has to phase in and out of it, and thus the human behavior will remain an important parameter to be accounted for. It appears that the inherent conflict resulting from human behavior will remain. However, the goal must be to create a solution where roadway, vehicle and human behavior combine to a harmonious, conflict-free Traffic4.0™ ecosystem that meets the needs of our Mass-Mobility-Future™.

We applied digital technologies to simulate traffic flow dynamics and gained an understanding of the inherent instability of human-controlled traffic flow. We can visualize the transition from free and stable flow to instability and traffic breakdown. We can also visualize the ideal Traffic4.0™ solutions and recognize a challenging transformation.

Our research clearly illustrates that the traffic transformation to stable flow dynamics requires the training of the public. Our industry4.0 generation, Gen4.0™, needs a playing field where “children of all ages” can virtually experience the traffic flow transition to steady flow at all speeds. The playground shall be for “kids of all ages” and give them an opportunity to be virtual drivers of a Car4.0™.  The playground can instill trust and confidence in driving a 4th generation car on a 4th generation high-speed freeway, the AutoBahn4.0™. The true meaning of “AutoBahn” can be unleashed with digital technology so that our freeways, a 3rd generation roadway system, transforms into its 4th level of maturity in form of the digital AutoBahn4.0™.

Theme parks are making great efforts to participate in Industry4.0 trends. We envision, however, that theme parks can actually fully enter into the digital age and lead society into its industry4.0 stage, the Society4.0™.  Theme Parks have to take on education, i.e., learning by playing. Here is a great opportunity to address the most difficult transformation that our society will ever face and offer kids of all ages to experience the most exciting transformation that will ever be offered to them. The theme park that takes this route will smoothly transition to ThemePark4.0™ while making a most effective contribution to our society’s transformation to a productively functioning Society4.0™.

[1]The World Economic Forum, 2016: “To survive disruption and thrive in the digital era, incumbents need to become digital enterprises, rethinking every element of their business.”

[1]SOURCE: Siemens Digital Industries Software, a subsidiary of Siemens AG, Germany