Mobility thinker Lukas Neckermann, Spain’s Secretary General for Innovation Teresa Riesgo and Axel Volkery, from the European Commission’s DG MOVE, will be among the headline speakers at Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress (TMWC), to be held from 3 to 5 November at the Gran Via venue of Fira de Barcelona. Co-organised by Fira de Barcelona and EIT Urban Mobility, an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, a body of the European Union, the congress will bring together more than 240 experts from cities, governments and companies to accelerate the shift to sustainable urban mobility.
Neckermann, who coined the term “The Mobility Revolution” with his first book, lectures on smart cities and placemaking, shared and autonomous mobility, and urban visions for 2035. He is co-founder of the Urban Places Lab, Board Member of PAVE Europe, author of four books, and Visiting Lecturer at Hult, TU Berlin, and the University of St. Gallen.
Teresa Riesgo has served since 2020 as Secretary General for Innovation at the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and as President of the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI). She will join a high-level roundtable on how mobility innovators can navigate an era of uncertainty.
Axel Volkery, Head of the Innovation and Urban Mobility unit at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE), will take part in a discussion on how public transport must evolve with changing user habits to remain attractive, accessible and relevant.
Other confirmed speakers include Daryl Barron, Lord Mayor of Dublin; Karen Vancluysen, Secretary General of POLIS; Lisandro Perotti, Undersecretary for Mobility Management and Control of the City of Buenos Aires; Toks Omishakin, Secretary of the California State Transportation Agency; KwangSeung Cha, Director General of the AI Innovation Bureau of Seongnam City (South Korea); Tanja Dik, CEO of the Johan Cruijff Arena; and Tifani Sadek, Professor at the University of Michigan.
Public transport, the backbone of the daily commute
A survey by EIT Urban Mobility among 1,503 adults in Barcelona, Munich and Bucharest on commuting and wellbeing. Its findings place public transport at the heart of urban life: 56% of respondents use it to get to work or their place of study, ahead of car-based transport (52%), and those who do are twice as likely to include walking in their journey. Safety, reliability and comfort are what commuters value most.
Despite their different local contexts, respondents in all three cities point to similar challenges. The largest gaps between what commuters value and what they experience, concern traffic density for car users and service reliability for public transport, while overcrowding also affects the quality of daily journeys. More than two in five respondents (41%) say they feel completely drained when they arrive home after their commute. The challenge for cities, and for the congress debates, is to exchange knowledge and explore innovative solutions for more sustainable, liveable cities.
A global event shaping urban futures
TMWC will be held alongside Smart City Expo World Congress, the leading international summit on smart cities and urban solutions; Tomorrow.Blue Economy; the Barcelona Deep Tech Summit; and the Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress. Together these events will gather more than 1,100 exhibitors and over 25,000 attendees, transforming Fira de Barcelona into the world’s largest hub for urban innovation.
