The proportion of the population aged 60 and older in western countries is countries is growing steadily. The mobility of older people is therefore of of increasing importance, as this rapid growth can lead to serious traffic problems if, with increasing age, the decites in driving skills become more pronounced as people age. The concentration of older people in rural areas thus presents the latter with a thus poses a variety of problems. Up to now, public transport in rural in rural regions is often designed to serve schoolchildren, and even this is only to a limited extent. Accordingly, these regions are facing new challenges and must adapt their structures accordingly.

Transportation in the megacities of the has a multitude of problems. One of the biggest core problems is the inadequate public transportation system which leads to a multitude of other problems such as extreme traffic congestion, long commute times, air pollution, fatal traffic accidents. The external cost of these consequences is a high damage to the economic development of these cities. With the continuous growth of these cities, this research area is continuously gaining importance to provide for a more sustainable world.

The People´s Republic of China was the first region to be affected by a global pandemic outbreak in January 2020. COVID-19 spread very quickly around the globe, presenting the international community with new dimensions of economic, social and moral problems. Countries responded by making macroscopic decisions for their nations. The individual regions were not equipped with the appropriate applications to be able to act regionally. Accordingly, micro-management decision support tools could be developed by us to advise the regional decision makers.

Demographic change is prevalent in rural regions against the backdrop of an aging society as well as out-migration due to a lack of employment opportunities employment opportunities and poor infrastructure. Given a fixed budget for transport operators, declining demand leads to high operating costs per transported customer. This makes the provision of public transport economically inefficient and People in rural areas become highly dependent on private motorized transport. Accordingly, public transport needs to be transformed through digitalization measures. For this purpose, the DRT system Ecobus was developed for rural areas as a door-to-door system.

Disruptive developments in automated driving systems, new drive concepts and digital mobility are shaping the way people in rural and urban areas. In combination with these technical potentials, novel mobility concepts can improve people`s everyday mobility of people in terms of both cost efficiency and sustainability. In addition, the challenges of demographic change and urbanization can be and negative developments can be mitigated.

In a comparison of the German states, Schleswig-Holstein scores below average on indicators such as gross domestic product per employee and research and development spending. One possible remedy against such scenarios is to provide impetus for technological innovations that have an impact on both economic growth and industrial development.