In ten years, my eldest girl will be 14. I trust that the transition to a sustainable economy will be well under way, especially in transportation, and that she will mostly know emissions-free and autonomous transportation.

I suspect that the shared economy will dominate urban mobility, and that I’ll be able to call a virtual driver to send her to school while being able to monitor what she does in transit from my place of work. In that context, I will hope to interact with her virtually with the equivalent of a 3D hologram. But I also hope that individual mobility will have expanded beyond roads, and that the air will have opened up for faster and less congested individual transit – emissions-free, of course.

The future of mobility as I envision it comes from forward-thinking approaches based on a synthesis of design and technology. Design must act as a means to creating sustainable systems, services and products that are customer centric, reliable and efficient.

As our needs as customers are rapidly changing, the future of mobility lies in the shift from being an owner to being a user. Mobility as a concept must be able to adapt quickly and easily to different needs and constraints. An emotional connection to products will transform into a shared sense of commitment towards the environment and the community we are part of, creating mobile solutions which are not only convenient, but also ethically responsible.

In a future where AI-driven technology is omnipresent, mobility will not only be about individual transportation needs, but be more efficient with resources by using sustainable materials and sustainable energy, as well as building on a sharing economy.

With this, transportation could be an opportunity for meaningful human interactions. Though in order for humans to thrive in such a tech-enabled future and make meaningful connections, we will need to foster our social and emotional skills, for example through play.

I believe in a disruptive change of mobility and the usage of vehicles to go anywhere. Digitalization, Automation, AI and Shared Mobility create frictionless experiences and a new possibility of using time. No matter where I go, what kind of transport I use or how long the trip takes, I will be brought where I want to go safely, quickly and emissions-free.

And I will use the time to go to a rock concert, meet colleagues in a video call, or learn new stuff during the trip. Since a lot of things will be managed by my personal assistant device at home, in the vehicle or elsewhere; I can concentrate on the important things. But always with an on-off switch that gives me the freedom to really decide.