Excellent and initegrative research
An important priority for project development in sustainable mobility is the bundling and strengthening of scientific projects. Above and beyond the excellent research activities already in place, new forms of cooperation will be developed with the TUM.Mobility platform.
Existing research activities and new forms of cooperation
EIT Urban Mobility offers outstanding opportunities for European cooperation on all topics related to the future of mobility. One of five regional hubs, the Innovation Hub Central, with headquarters in the future Munich Urban Co-Lab in the city’s creative district, will be formed by TUM along with private sector partners (such as BMW, SIEMENS, MAN), research partners from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft or UnternehmerTUM, and the city of Munich, as well as institutions in Stuttgart, Milan, Vienna, Switzerland and Istanbul/Turkey. More than 50 partners from across Europe are involved. The challenges facing European cities in shaping sustainable mobility will be addressed in innovation projects, reference projects involving the general public, and start-up funding, but also in new, entrepreneurial teaching formats. TUM will be involved in the implementation of numerous projects right from the start. The program currently has total funding of up to 400 million euros (2020–2026). The annual project calls are also open to new partners and will be continued beyond 2026.
3 dimensions - Quality of time, Quality of space, Quality of air
In addition, M Cube – the Munich cluster for the future of mobility in urban areas – is now taking shape at TUM. At present it is receiving funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in a concept development phase. Together with a large number of regional actors, TUM is drawing up a nine-year cluster strategy and plans the first implementation projects for 2021 to 2024. Following a highly competitive pre-selection process open to applications from across Germany, the program will be nominated as a future cluster to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). If the bid is successful, annual funding of up to 5 million euros can be expected. The emphasis will be on research and development projects in the areas of:
- electrification and automation of traffic systems,
- developing and integrating mobility options and
- networking locations and designing mobility spaces.
Each individual project would have at least two project leaders from different scientific disciplines along with a private- sector and a public-sector partner. All projects will be implemented in a dialog with the public and will pursue strategic goals geared to improvements along the three dimensions: “Quality of time”, “Quality of space” and “Quality of air”.
TUM is the drivingforce powering numerous mobility initiatives
Based on the sustainable mobility experiences gained in many living labs in Munich (including the new Parkstadt Schwabing and Domagkpark/CIVITAS ECCENTRIC, the existing districts in Sendling/City2Share and the urban renewal concept in Neu-Aubing/Westkreuz/SmarterTogether) and strategic projects such as EASYRIDE, new innovation sites and test areas for automated driving are currently being developed in the north of Munich.
Since 2018, preparations have been underway at TUM for a large-scale research project on the hyperloop. The hyperloop is a proposed transport system in which a high-speed train would travel at close to the speed of sound through a tube maintained at a partial vacuum. The hyperloop network was established after the TUM student team attracted worldwide attention after repeatedly winning top honors in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, where they went head to head against the world’s leading universities. In this competition, student teams from around the world were challenged to design and build the fastest “pod” – as the capsules intended to transport passengers through the tube are known. An increasing number of research chairs from various disciplines have supported the project with scientific and engineering expertise and supervision of thesis projects. Since the beginning of 2020, these research projects have been funded by the Bavarian state government.
Singapore is a special location for TUM with regard to mobility. It has now been 15 years since the Campus TUM Asia, located in the Asian megacity, began offering a two-year, full-time master’s program in “Rail, Transport and Logistics”, which prepares graduates to work as specialists in that rapidly growing field. The international research and innovation campus TUMCREATE in Singapore has been studying electromobility and autonomous, networked public transport systems for 10 years. Continuing its strong presence, TUM is now working alongside local partners to establish an interdisciplinary research and training center “Transport and Logistics”.
Strategic networking of thematic focus areas
Having successfully applied for “Excellence University” status on multiple occasions, the Technical University of Munich is in a position to expand its strategy of networking key fields of interest.
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) facilitates cooperation with international experts through the fellowship program. Innovative research ideas can be supported here with start-up funding. In the future this will also be possible in the TUM Innovation Networks – interdisciplinary and creative research groups with regional partners, doctoral candidates and students in master’s programs. The goal is to provide dynamic teams with the freedom they need to launch trailblazing innovations and thus to nurture larger research clusters. Proposals can be submitted at any time.
Major potential for further developments in mobility research at the interface between technological development and social sciences is embodied in the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS). A wide range of disciplines come together here to work on creative and co-creative solutions through the interaction of science, politics and society. The MCTS thus forms the bridge to the technology-related aspects of social and political sciences. Vital cultural, ethical and political issues provide many valuable reference points for TUM.Mobility.
The Munich School of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MSRM) can also serve as a reference model for integrative research. One of the six methodological and thematic clusters is already addressing the mobility of the future from the specific standpoint of artificial intelligence and the related potential for autonomous systems and virtual networking (the Internet of things).
The research clusters in energy research also contain numerous interfaces and cooperative possibilities for in-depth exploration. The Center for Energy and Information (ZEI) has become a respected name and point of contact, for example with regard to energy networks and electromobility (smart grid) and battery research.
Giving dynamic teams the freedom they need to launch trailblazing innovations.
Interdisciplinary mobility research directed toward sustainable development will now have its own address at the Technical University of Munich (TUM): TUM.Mobility will be established as a platform for cooperative research and systemic innovation in the area of sustainable mobility. This new, open network takes a holistic view of mobility needs and is based on intelligent transport systems for passengers and freight. The goal is to bring individual mobility needs into line with the economic, social and ecological boundary conditions to enable the transportation sector to meet the requirements of sustainable development in the future – not only in the prosperous metropolitan region of Munich, but also worldwide.
Research in the TUM.Mobility network
mobil.LAB Doctoral Research Group
“Shaping mobility cultures” is the common framework of the doctoral program on sustainable mobility in the metropolitan region of Munich, co-organized with HfWU, and funded by the Hans-Böckler Foundation.
Graduate School: Advanced Optimization in a Networked Economy (AdONE)
A Research Training Group “Advanced Optimization in a Networked Economy (AdONE)”, funded by DFG, in the fields of operations research and management science, aiming to develop models and processes and transfer these into software solutions designed to enable efficient use of resources through intelligent planning and control.
MOnitoring, MOdeling and forecasting MObility patterns
An interdisciplinary project to develop methods for crowdsourcing mobility data and analysing to infer models and predict (macroscopic) mobility behavior, the insights of which will be applied to different mobility scenarios.
A major research platform in Singapore, focusing on e-mobility, autonomous vehicles and ultimate