“Lisbon will be staging the mobility of the future”
The press conference of the Lisbon Mobi Summit presentation took place this Tuesday at the headquarters of EDP in Lisbon.
“Lisbon will be the stage for the mobility of the future”, said Victor Ribeiro, CEO of Global Media Group this Tuesday, at the formal launch of the Lisbon Mobi Summit, that will give its first steps between January 26th and 28th. The event, sponsored by EDP, a global energy company based in Portugal, corresponds to “one of the most ambitious projects of the Group for 2018 and following years”, said Victor Ribeiro, at the press conference in EDP’s headquarters.
“The goal is to anticipate the trends in the field of mobility: from electric cars to shared vehicles, from intelligent networks to traffic management in the cities as well as technology and businesses around mobility, without forgetting the involvement of the citizens”, said José Carlos Lourenço, COO of Global Media Group, who took charge of the presentation of the Lisbon Mobi Summit. To reach this, there will be a series of initiatives that will culminate with a big international conference in September which will have journalistic coverage by the Group’s media including DN, JN, TSF, DV, Motor24 as well as the microsite www.lisbonms.com.
The project, that counts with the partnership of Volkswagen and Via Verde, an electronic toll collection system used in Portugal, is based on the central idea that “sustainable and intelligent mobility will be one of the main catalysts for change in the lives of people, companies and cities in the next decade. To anticipate the future that has already started, to share best practices and involve and awake society and citizens for this new world sustains the project in great measure that is now starting to give its first steps”, added José Carlos Lourenço.
Examples of change
Some examples of something that is changing were given today by the initiative’s partners. António Coutinho, of EDP Comercial, said that the estimate of car manufacturers for sales of electric vehicles is set at 10% by 2015 and 40% by 2014.
António Coutinho, da EDP Comercial (Filipe Amorim / Global Imagens)
The administrator also said that it is estimated that in three years’ time there will be 15 million users of carsharing. On EDP’s part, the company expects to have ten fast charging stations by the end of the year and to continue to develop new solutions in the area of mobility.
“As for Volkswagen, the company has already created its own electric brand, the ID, which will be adapted to several bodies and is involved in a shared transport system”, said the company representative at the conference, Ricardo Tomaz. As for their targets for electric vehicles, they have been revised upwards: from 2% to 20% by 2020.
“Via Verde has also been focusing on the growing digitization and on multimodality, in the sense of a greater combination of means of transport and launched the second service of carsharing in Lisbon, Via Verde Boleias”, reminded the spokesperson of the company, Franco Caruso.
Reasons that contribute to Paulo Humanes, PTV Group director, consider that “Lisbon is a particularly friendly city for the mobility of the future”. According to a study developed for Lisbon by the German company PTV Group (specialized in software that optimizes the movement of people and goods in 2500 cities), if the solution of shared vehicles was optimized, it’s possible to reduce automobile circuits by 90% in Lisbon.
António Coutinho, from EDP Comercial, Ricardo Tomaz from SIVA/VW, Franco Caruso from Via Verde and Paulo Humanes from PTV (Filipe Amorim/Global Images)
