San Francisco is the city best prepared for the future of urban mobility, according to a new assessment.
The city’s adoption of electric vehicles and other high-tech innovations overshadowed its reliance on private cars, ultimately earning it the top spot in a ranking of 70 global cities by the Oliver Wyman Forum, the consulting firm’s social action arm, and the University of California, Berkeley.
The researchers weighed dozens of factors like walkability, air quality and the use of zero-emission buses to come up with an Urban Mobility Readiness Index that analyses how well people and goods can move through a city and to surrounding population centres.
Other cities in the top five, including Paris, Munich and Amsterdam, saw robust public transportation systems and strong universities that collaborate successfully with the private sector. Singapore, which came in third, extended its tax rebate incentive for early EV adoption through 2025 and boasts some of the safest roads in the world, with few road fatalities and low traffic.
The analysis includes separate indexes for sustainability, public transit and technology. With Helsinki at the top of the “sustainable mobility index,” green efforts in Europe appear to have paid off. Hong Kong was the only city in the top 10 of that category located outside the continent. Meanwhile, Singapore ranked first in public transit.
A city’s score is compiled based on 71 different metrics that the researchers define each year. This year they noticed that innovations in technology like the use of artificial intelligence and aviation were having a greater impact on cities’ mobility than in 2019 when they started this analysis.
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“We felt this year was really important to attribute a bigger weight to technology in light of the growing number of automated vehicles in operation in the urban environment, and at a slightly longer time scale, the rise of electric vertical takeoff and landing (e-VTOL) aircraft as a new mobility paradigm,” said Alexandre Bayen, associate provost and professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley.
The focus on technology and innovation this year shifted the ratings in favour of US cities, which performed well despite lagging in public transit and infrastructure for bikes and pedestrians. San Francisco, which landed in 24th place in public transit and 18th in sustainable mobility, scored points for its EV adoption and the infrastructure it is working to set up for air taxis. Similarly, New York rose to eighth place from 12th last year, and Boston and Los Angeles made it into the top 15.
Another factor that has long-lasting effects on urban mobility and boosted some cities’ scores is preparation for international sporting events. Paris, the first overall runner-up, expanded one of its Metro lines ahead of the 2024 Olympics, and Volocopter conducted a test flight of its air taxi in Versailles during the closing ceremony.
As Los Angeles prepares to host the games in 2028, the city is injecting money to make the Olympics “car-free” with a new light-rail line, rapid bus lanes and metro extensions. Meanwhile, several cities in North America are exploring investments in sustainable transportation ahead of the 2026 Fifa World Cup, according to the report. Dallas, for instance, is seeking funding for electric buses to make it easier for fans to travel to and from matches.
Many cities at the bottom of the index in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East made little progress with EV adoption and overall preparation for what the report calls the “digital transformation,” meaning the ability to adopt new technologies like self-driving cars, explained Guillaume Thibault, a partner at Oliver Wyman. Several cities at the bottom of the index did not have enough public transportation stops to make it easy for their citizens to move around.
But the analysis is not meant to shame cities, the researchers said. They point out that low-ranking cities have high investing potential, with the opportunity to fund projects like new rail lines and EV charging stations.
The researchers added recommendations for where all cities in the index have room to grow, including ones at the top. For example, they suggest that San Francisco invest in its public transportation and improve cycling infrastructure.
“If you’re good, it’s good,” Bayen said. “If you’re bad, that’s not bad.” BLOOMBERG
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