Tomorrow’s Transport Infrastructure: from Static to Elastic Mobility

The mobility needs of modern cities and their citizens are changing. From today's static transport networks we are heading towards flexible and adaptive networks with the ability to respond to the changing needs and goals of drivers and travelers, creating a novel highly elastic road infrastructure. The advances in information and communication technologies and the use of smart-phones are key enablers affecting future transport networks and enhancing sustainable mobility. Collaboration among all the different participants in the transportation network, in a way that the overall mobility of the system is optimized, is a key concept. At the same time this collaboration is challenging since different users and various stakeholders have conflicting preferences, characteristics and constraints. The main challenge is to raise the community awareness making road users to follow collaborative strategies that benefit all road users as a group.