Mobility in the age of digital modernity: why the private car is losing its significance, intermodal transport is winning and why digitalisation is the key

Abstract The private automobile is a central enabler for modern societies and is thus a culturally charged symbol. Can this societal promise of private car ownership and automotive mobility in the face of climate change and permanent congestion imply the continued guarantee of social participation? The digital options for transportation allow for a general safeguarding of mobility without the direct need for private vehicles, but the current market structures do not allow for that. It is obvious, that new business models triggered by digitalisation are struggling to find support in the current legal frameworks, although they increase the capacity and efficiency of transport and energy systems, reinforcing decarbonisation initiatives and eventually also address the citizens needs and interest in a more effective way. The dynamics of digitalisation are speeding up, eroding current patterns of mobility behaviour; the current legal framework, however, preserves the status quo and even contradicts the promise of social participation. Considerable restrictions on the private car need and will be implemented as urban and environmental pressures can no longer be mitigated. Electrification of the entire transportation sector is thus not only necessitated due to climate change mitigation, but is in line with the increased interlinking of different modes of transport into integrated mobility services. This shift will involve a fundamental transformation of the transport sector. It is driven not only by economic and technological factors, but importantly also by important societal developments and considerations. The use of digital technologies in order to economise the mobility sector, making it more efficient and intermodal, cannot be stopped. The automobile with its combustion engine was only the first generation appliance. Its broad success, however, has forced us to consider alternatives and reinterpret the product with the help of digital technologies.