ETH News

The new ETH Policy Fellowship aims to foster greater understanding between government and the academic world. Regina Witter from the Federal Office for Spatial Development was among the first cohort to take part.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder – yet how do we find consensus on a shared amenity such as a neighbourhood? We took a stroll with two ETH architects to discover how they see their role as mediators between the conflicting priorities of urban consolidation, functionalism and aesthetics.

The Canton of Zurich recently adopted the net-zero 2040 climate protection target. Here Sibylle Wälty appeals for more 10-minute neighbourhoods, which, by making better use of the settlement area, will reduce emissions.

In the race to combat climate change, sustainable transport systems can play a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. As well as focusing on the technological issues at stake, current research also investigates whether there is public acceptance for the changes. Kay Axhausen explains this approach.  

Shared e-scooters and e-bikes transport the image of a climate-friendly mobility solution. ETH researchers have now shown that shared micromobility solutions in Zurich emit more CO₂ emissions than the alternatives they replace.

In the largest worldwide pricing experiment to date, researchers have demonstrated that road users change their behavior when they must pay for the social and environmental effects of their transportation. The study was led by researchers from the University of Basel, ETH Zurich and ZHAW.

Using large-​scale mobility data from diverse cities around the globe, researchers from ETH Zurich, MIT and the Santa Fe Institute discover a powerful yet surprisingly simple travel law that governs the number of visitors to any location in a city.  

Implementation of the “ETH Campus Hönggerberg 2040” vision has taken a major step forward. Zurich’s municipal council approved the outlines of the plans for the future campus development with few changes.

“It’s quiet in Singapore, it’s cooler – and you can make remarkable scientific findings right now,” says Gerhard Schmitt, Director of the SEC. The coronavirus crisis has turned the megacity into a giant research lab.

ETH Zurich is developing its campus of the future at Hönggerberg – today, the city council of Zurich set another milestone in the development of an urban campus for teaching, research and exchange.

ETH Zurich is planning to step up its research activities in Singapore. It aims to extend its current Future Resilient Systems programme by five years and to launch a new programme, Future Health Technologies, in the coming year.

In a collaboration with Swiss International Air Lines, NASA and other partners, researchers at ETH Zurich have developed eye-tracking software for use in pilot training. This allows instructors to analyse the gaze behaviour of student pilots in the cockpit.

ETH researchers have shown that we can use the structure of urban road networks to predict their traffic capacity. This information enables urban and transportation planners to quantify how changes will influence traffic volumes.

A unique simulation for the city of Zurich shows that driverless taxis would not displace personal transport in cities as long as automated private vehicles are also available. Previous simulations assumed too high a demand for automated taxi services, as they did not take into account user preferences regarding flexibility, costs and waiting times.

Pieter Fourie explains how smartphone location data can be analysed without violating the users’ privacy.

Autonomous trains are on their way – in fact they’re already here, says Francesco Corman. Yet despite the many advantages of driverless rail transport, there’s very little public discussion about it. 

ETH Zurich archives cultural assets and makes them available to the public. At the same time, it makes an impact on Swiss culture like almost no other institution.  

Should road mobility become electric – or is it better to wait and see if other technologies come up? Electric cars are by far the most feasible technology to make driving CO₂ neutral; they are an inescapable element of a wider transition to clean energy, blogs Anthony Patt.

Cities both drive climate change and suffer its effects. As havens of innovation, however, they also have the ability to change. The ETH Klimarunde invites residents to discuss challenges and solutions for cities experiencing climate change.

The rapid transport of people and goods is both a growing demand as well as an economic necessity. The price we pay for it is an ever-increasing volume of traffic. When it comes to tackling this dilemma in the future, it’s worth taking a look at the past.

A new ETH spin-off, Vir2sense, specialises in the development of virtual testbeds designed to optimise the performance of marine diesel engines. The young entrepreneurs, Christophe Barro and Panagiotis Kyrtatos, hope to sell their product to big shipping companies.

The grimsel electric racing car broke the world record for acceleration by an electric car today. The vehicle accelerated from 0 to 100 km/h in 1.513 seconds over a distance of less than 30 m. The record-breaking car was developed by students at ETH Zurich and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

Together with around 20 partners from the mobility sector, researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of St. Gallen developed a vision for the future of mobility in Switzerland.

Das Schweizer Kompetenzzentrum «Efficient Mobility» untersucht Wege hin zu einer nachhaltigen Mobilität der Zukunft. Erfolgreich kann die Transformation nur sein, wenn Verkehrssysteme als Ganzes betrachtet werden. 

Weltweit wachsen die Megastädte und immer mehr Menschen zieht es in grosse Agglomerationen. Wie können wir heute die besten Verkehrsnetze für die Städte von morgen planen?

More and more plug-in electric vehicles are appearing on our streets. This poses new challenges for the electrical grid. However, electric vehicles’ batteries can also be a valuable resource when distribution grids become “smart grids”.

Today, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) is presenting the Watt d’Or energy prize in the Energy-efficient mobility category to the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control. This award is in recognition of the technology the institute has developed in collaboration with Carrosserie Hess AG.

ETH Zurich’s Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) in Singapore is undertaking several research projects into sustainable urban development and architectural design. A selection of these research projects is now being presented for the first time as part of an exhibition at ETH Zurich.

After a construction phase of some six years, the 9.6 kilometre cross-city link (Durchmesserlinie) and Löwenstrasse station will open tomorrow in Zurich. ETH News spoke to rail transport expert Ulrich Alois Weidmann, professor of transport systems at the Institute for Transport Planning and Systems, about the changes the new route will bring.

The first car using common rail injection technology travelled on Swiss roads twenty years ago. Engineers at the ETH Zurich played a crucial role in the development of the economical and low-emission diesel engine technology that is widely used today.

Es ist ein Sonntagabend Mitte November, leichter Nieselregen, der die spektakulär beleuchtete Budapester Altstadt schimmern lässt. Bei meiner Ankunft im leer geräumten Restaurant erwarten mich rund 150 junge Leute, die sich zwei Tage lang zu den Themen Nachhaltigkeit der Mobilität und Ressourceneffizienz austauschen wollen.