From May 18 through 22, 2011, the eleventh annual professional global forum organised by the Michelin company to address the problem of sustainable transport was held in Berlin at the former Tempelhof Airport. The event, named after the company’s unforgettable mascot "Bibendum", aims to bring together a variety of experts addressing questions of transportation, to allow them to discuss and communicate, among themselves, their experience and views regarding problems that the development of transportation on a global scale brings in its wake.

During the present year, up to five thousand experts and journalists from the entire world took part. The backbone of the program consisted of various professional workshops and seminars, many of them open to the wider professional community, as well as an accompanying exhibition in which it was possible to observe at close range a diverse array of innovations in the area of individual transport (electro-cycles, electric cars, hybrid vehicles etc.) and even to try a few of them out on the test track.

Included among the traditionally most discussed themes is the question of transport safety, and the methods of increasing it further. Across the world, the number of fatalities and injuries in traffic accidents remains high (e.g. every day in India the deaths in traffic accidents are the equivalent of the crash of a larger passenger airliner) and the only remedy is the continual passive and active securing of vehicles, along with measures to organise road traffic and increase education, preferably in children from the pre-school years onward.

Great attention was also, however, devoted equally to lowering the energy consumption of transportation, and in general the impacts associated with it (environmental influence). A special seminar devoted to public bus transportation indicated the directions in which this segment is proceeding – from the use of fixed-route bus networks in the form of "bus rapid transportation", which can provide a similar passenger capacity to rail transport (metro, train, tram) with much lower cost, through the modernisation of the appearance of vehicles and interiors (with the aim of increasing attractiveness and passenger comfort) up to the implementation of new power systems (hybrid, fully electric).

The desire to increase energy efficiency was particularly in evidence in the section for automotive goods transport. The leading manufacturers in this section presented, following the patterns set in the field of private cars, fuel-efficient trucks capable of achieving consumption figures much lower by several percentage points (e.g. the EcoStralis from IVECO), and significant decreases can also be achieved through new designs for transportation spaces (e.g. two smaller trailers in place of one larger one, or the use of low-floor trailers).

The “electromobile trend” was, as expected, present everywhere, particularly for passenger cars. Visitors could test-drive essentially all of the leading models of electric cars that have been, or are soon to be, introduced into the market (the Volt and Ampera models from GM, C-Zero by Citroen, iOn by Peugeot et al.), and see for themselves on the test track their advantages – quiet running and good acceleration. Any massive development of electric cars, however, is conditional on advances in battery technology – to make them competitive their price has to fall (below 300 EUR/kWh) and their storage capacity increase (above 150 Wh/kg). However, bearing in mind the extensive research and development under way in this field, this goal seems achievable even in the current decade.

Proof of the contention that sustainable mobility could have synergetic effects for the sustainable energy sector as a whole was given by the innovative concept presented by the automotive manufacturer AUDI, which intends to realise in the next 2-3 years a demonstration project of wind-turbine generators, from which the electricity produced is not planned to end up in motor vehicles but will serve (through electrolysis) for making hydrogen. And this is not even the final product, since the hydrogen will be used in a catalytic reactor, bringing in atmospheric CO2, to create methane. And it is this methane that will be fuel for the cars that this German firm plans to introduce into the market (such as the model TCNG). The advantage of this approach is the removal of the problems with the creation of the necessary hydrogen infrastructure: in its place, it uses already extant natural gas and the de facto recycling of the CO2 that will be released into the air through the burning of the methane for the retroactive production of fuel. As such, the solution has the possibility of putting onto the market automobiles with extremely low CO2 emissions (though it is not yet known how much) and likewise address the problem with the effects of generating electricity from wind.

In conclusion, we would like to take this opportunity to offer our thanks to the organisers for the possibility of taking part in this exceptionally interesting event.

Further information can be found on the website:
http://www.michelinchallengebibendum.com