The University of Stuttgart has already received an award for its mobility concept “Mobility Living Lab (MobiLab)” in the 2019 ideas competition “Mobility concepts for an emission-free campus” of the Ministry of Science, Research and Art (MWK). Now the project is entering the lighthouse phase and will be funded by the MWK over a period of two years with a total of EUR 3.54 million. During this time, the University of Stuttgart will be setting out to implement its ambitious mobility-related climate goals. On 29 June 2020, the Minister of Science, Theresia Bauer, handed over the letter of approval of funding to Rector Prof. Wolfram Ressel at a launch event in the ARENA2036 research factory on the Vaihingen campus.
In her address, the Minister emphasized that climate-friendly mobility solutions must be made practicable and, above all, tangible so that they contribute to a change in behavior. “A university campus can be the ideal living lab where new ideas are developed, tested, and implemented,” said Bauer. The Minister underlined MobiLab’s role as a pacemaker: “The University of Stuttgart can demonstrate on its campus, with its promising and exemplary mobility concept, how cities can implement sustainable mobility in a user-friendly way.”
In his welcome address, Prof. Wolfram Ressel outlined the mobility-related climate goals of the University of Stuttgart as well as the full concept and roadmap of the two-year project funding phase. He emphasized that the funding provided by the MWK is a valuable motivation for all those involved to develop the campus as a testing ground for zero emissions, in accordance with the vision of the University of Stuttgart “Intelligent Systems for a Sustainable Society”.
The Rector went on to say: “In the funding phase that now follows, we are giving the MobiLab project a new objective that now covers the entire University of Stuttgart. MobiLab defines a unique goal to reduce the mobility-related release of CO2 of the entire University of Stuttgart. The Vaihingen campus is now the living laboratory for implementing far-reaching innovative approaches, by combining concrete measures that are to be implemented in the near future with future-oriented research activities.
The climate goal for 2035 of the University of Stuttgart
On the basis of the 17 global sustainability goals of the UN as well as the university’s profile development with the vision “Intelligent Systems for a Sustainable Society”, the University of Stuttgart determined in its “Strategy Dialog on Sustainability”, in cooperation with all member groups of the university, that energy-related climate neutrality should be achieved for the mobility and facility management sectors by the year 2035.
MobiLLab: 3 Overarching aspects - 10 sub-projects
The concept of the project envisages 10 sub-projects, whose definition is determined by three overarching ideas:
The first idea is to anchor MobiLab to the University of Stuttgart in particular and to change the mobility related to the university in general. The sub-projects “Coordinating Office for Mobility”, “Mobility Officer”, and “Monitoring Mobility and CO2 Emissions” serve to manifest these processes at the university.
The second idea in the sub-project selection was to continue the measures that were already defined in last year’s competition entry: The “RegioradStuttgart” bike sharing system, e-scooters, the campus shuttle, a feasibility study and a climate and environmental assessment of the B 14 parking garage, the research street “Dynamic Charging”, and secure energy supply.
Finally, the third aspect takes up topics that MobiLab brought to the university’s attention in the course of its previous work: Parking space management, automatic bicycle parking garage with charging station and bicycle boxes.
