Post Car World

The goal of this project is to explore the future of mobility through the role of the car. The main originality of this research is to raise the following problem: ‘What, if the world were a post-car world’. The basic idea is to define a hypothetical situation where the place of the car would have been dramatically reduced and to use qualitative and quantitative simulation methods to examine the consequences of this initial hypothesis. To formalize our approach, we will design a counterfactual world in which the car has no use: a Post Car World. The objective is to conceive a world without cars (with four variants) in order to help us appraising the current role of automobile, to highlight its meaning in our modern societies and to envision new possibilities for mobility and spatial development. In order to understand the nature of this potential deep mutation and analyse the complexity of the current ‘car-society’, a comprehensive and synergistic approach will be carried out. In brief, this project is based on the idea that by simulating the future through scenarios we can understand the present better. This research project is by no means an ideological project; it is not guided by an ecological advocacy approach or by a possible agenda of sustainable policies. Right to the contrary, the approach chosen emphasizes the observation of the present-day’s society, including the diversity of its orientations or attitudes towards future. Switzerland as a whole and in some of its parts will be used as the main geographical reference in the overall project. This project is fully interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary. It brings together social sciences, engineering sciences, urban planning and urban design.