Welcome to the polisMOBILITY! | polisMOBILITY Magazin

Dear Readers,

I’m delighted to welcome you as one of our visitors at polisMOBILITY. By attending the event, you are underscoring how important the issue of mobility is – and with it the related question of how we want to shape the reality of our lives, our cities and regions to create a liveable future. All our exhibitors and our partners have contributed significantly to the success of polisMOBILITY. I would like to express my warm thanks to all of them for their commitment.

One thing is clear: Cities and local authorities are facing farreaching changes. As we consider the question of how we want to live in the future, every person, every company and every local authority will contribute their own personal responses to the debate. But what will prove crucial will be finding a way for all the stakeholders to come together around a joint solution that represents a goal worth striving for to all of us.

In this context, the question of how we shape urban mobility will assume a decisive role. First of all, we must promote intermodality to enable individual mobility models. To be viable, mobility concepts must make it possible to switch flexibly and efficiently between different modes of transport and different routes. The paradigm of our future mobile lifestyles will shift fundamentally in relation to means of transport, moving away from owning and towards using and sharing.

Rapidly developing technologies are emerging as a result of digitalisation. With their realtime data transfer rates, these technologies will pave the way for future mobility solutions. But also pedestrian and bicycle mobility are assuming an increasingly important role in the mobility transition. Many challenges therefore remain.

We must reach an agreement on what our priorities are and on how to create a place for mobility in our cities in a way that is intelligent, efficient and puts people’s needs first. Focusing the mobility transition solely on individual sectors will be neither sufficient nor constructive. We must look for strategies and solutions collectively with an integrated approach.

As the organisers of polisMOBILITY, we are facing up to this challenge, which concerns all members of society. We want to make our contribution to a successful mobility transition by providing a transdisciplinary forum for joint dialogue and creativity for all the relevant stakeholders. As our approach to the issues encompasses all sectors, we see the trade fair as more than a mere product showcase. It is conceived as a platform. It is our ambition to create opportunities to glean new perspectives and, ideally, to identify potential cooperations and solutions.

We are staging a conference of immense topical relevance and one that is unique in Germany in terms of its high quality standards and its scope. Acclaimed thought leaders who have distinguished themselves in the mobility debate will discuss the challenges of the transition. Our exhibition builds on the conference by presenting innovative, networked solutions and the technologies that support them. Last but not least, we involve our visitors in the event’s concept.

polisMOBILITY therefore extends beyond the trade fair grounds with the cityHUB, where our exhibitors and partners will present bestpractice examples on the urban test tracks in the area around Cologne’s Rudolfplatz. From electric bicycles to cargo bikes and e-car sharing, the cityHUB brings together a large selection of modern vehicles for local mobility with alternative and zero-emissions drives. An allday shuttle shuttle service connects the cityHUB with the trade fair ground.

One of the event’s centrepieces will be polisCAMP, hosted by the City of Cologne in collaboration with Koelnmesse and located right alongside the cityHUB on the eastern part of Rudolfplatz. Formed of six construction trailers with front gardens and with its own programme, this forum for interaction will host an open dialogue and provide a stage for numerous initiatives and stakeholder groups to present perspectives from civil society on the humanscale city and tomorrow’s mobility.

We at Koelnmesse have made a firm decision to be a part of the solution – because we are aware that existing trade fair concepts are insufficient to do justice to this complex issue. The task we faced was therefore to rethink the trade fair intelligently. The result is polisMOBILITY.

With these thoughts in mind, I hope you will enjoy polisMOBILITY and come away with many enlightening ideas.

Warm regards,

Oliver Frese

Chief Operating Officer of Koelnmesse