Electric Mobility and Smart Mobility Concepts—Restrained Uptake in German Cities

Ninety German cities exceeded the European threshold on NO2 in 2016, 65 of those cities developed countermeasures and strategies that were published in Green City Plans (GCP). In the scope of this study, 55 publicly available GCPs were evaluated in order to assess their potential for traffic turnaround at a municipal level. All GCPs were analyzed to determine in which of the mentioned five to seven fields of action the respective city had planned measures and which fields of action were prioritized. A more in-depth qualitative analysis of the main topics: Electric mobility, public transport, and mobility concepts was carried out. To get a better understanding of the potential impact of the measures elaborated in the GCPs, complementary information on municipal fleet vehicle stocks, requirements of charging infrastructure for public buses and results of the European roadmap on mobility concepts are given. The evaluation of the GCPs showed that to this day, city administrations mainly optimize the current system by measures of electrification and digitization. Electrification of municipal fleets, car-sharing fleets, and public transport buses is in the focus of the strategies. Instruments to increase non-motorised transport, sustainable commercial transport, and/or mobility concepts are mentioned, but play a minor role. However, there still has been no system change in Germany. Therefore, a substantial turnaround of the transport system (“Verkehrswende”) is necessary. This applies to integrated urban and transport planning, flexible, strong, fast PT, non-motorised and flexible operating systems.