On the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Audi
CEO Rupert Stadler demanded tearing down a different wall. He said “finally
tear down walls in the fields of business and politics.” In his dinner speech
at the end of the Falling Walls Conference at the Brandenburg Gate, he appealed
for the creation of more shared standards for the common economic area of 800
million people in the planned transatlantic trade agreement between the EU and
the USA (TTIP).
He stated that creation of more standards was even more
important than abolishing import duties, because differing regulations make
things unnecessarily complicated and expensive for the industry.
At the same time, the Audi CEO appealed to transport
planners in metropolises to design their infrastructures to be just as
intelligent as the cars of the future will be. This will allow space in cities
to be used better and will improve the quality of life.
“With a car that you
buy in the United States, even such details as the colour of the indicator
lights are prescribed differently,” he
said. Differing standards, also with regard to crash tests and emissions, “make
things unnecessarily complicated and expensive for our industry.”
He pointed out that commuters on the roads of Beijing or
Mexico City spend a total of one month a year in traffic jams, and that this is
a waste of time, money and fuel.
According to Stadler, modern technology that makes traffic
movements predictable will also allow urban space to be used better. More
intelligent traffic management systems that recognise the patterns of urban
life and can thus predict people’s movements will help to spread the traffic load
more evenly over road networks in the future. Stadler appealed for urban
infrastructures to be better connected with road users. For example, the Audi
traffic-lights service “Ampelinfo online” calculates the ideal speed for “the
perfect green wave.” A pilot project is taking place in Berlin in which every
third set of traffic lights is already online.