Arnd BÄTZNER

Biographical note
Arnd Bätzner is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of St.Gallen’s Institute for Systemic Management and Public Governance: He provides consulting on the urban integration of future multi-modal transit systems into the built environment and learning from informal transport to complement fixed-route services in an AV age. Arnd’s research focuses on elevated walkability enhancers such as skybridges, ropeways and people movers for last-mile station linkage and access. Arnd is an ETH Zurich graduate. He is a member of several TRB standing committees and an executive steering committee member of TRB’s conference on demand-responsive transit. Since 2011 he has been a board of directors member of Switzerland’s Mobility Car Sharing, operating nationwide.

Presentation: Rail-based transit in an age of AVs and shared mobility – Learnings from informality and governance challenges for a civil society
While the current urban transport debate is largely being held on a technical level, it becomes increasingly urgent to include holistic reflexions on social and societal impacts, including accessibility, equity and urban design consequences, fostering a high-level dialogue between policymaking, industry and research. With regard to an upcoming world of autonomous vehicles, the proposed presentation takes a broad look at different implementation scenarios and their possible effects on urban form, economic and social factors attached, including future roles of mass transit. Bringing in learnings from informal mobility, reflections include possible DRT implementations developed as an extension of current shared-vehicle systems. The results are implications for policymaking essential to designing future mobility systems that first and foremost are to serve a civil society.