Mobility Live ME 2025. This multifaceted event is structured around four B2B verticals—rail, EVs, smart mobility, and solar & storage—bringing together operators, public actors, and major global suppliers, from Chinese 🇨🇳 firms to leading European railway players, notably from France and Italy.
Beyond the railway sector, #ITS companies specialising in traffic and fleet management stood out, including players like Valtech Mobility GmbH (Germany 🇩🇪), a key actor in software-defined vehicle and fleet solutions, as Silver Sponsor, underlining the growing role of software-led orchestration #mobility systems.
#Dubai is clearly progressing: robotaxi pilots (Cruise, Baidu, WeRide, and Ponyai)*, AI-based traffic control, and electric buses are advancing steadily. Despite strong growth, BEVs ⚡️ accounted for just 6% of new car sales in the #UAE in 2024—still well behind Europe 🇪🇺 (14%) and China 🇨🇳 (45%).
As for air mobility, it remains at the conceptual and regulatory marketing stage—no demonstrators are operational yet, and commercial deployment is still several steps away.
Ride-hailing is efficient and widespread—vital in a context where extreme 45°C heat limits walkability, challenging the practical implementation of the “15–20 minute city” concept.
While the event is well-executed, many solutions remain aligned with what’s seen in trade shows worldwide—mature, structured, but rarely disruptive.
Early-stage startups are scarce, and few platforms tackle the governance layer of the #smartcity : AI for urban decision-making, real-time data coordination, or operational use of urban #digitaltwins are limited—raising questions about how integrated and governable these future systems truly are.
A standout is Expo City Dubai, now positioned as an urban lab for sustainability and smart technologies. Purpose-built, carbon-neutral, and sensor-rich—it serves more as a strategic testing ground than a functioning city, but an asset worth watching.
In short: a typical professional salon with rather insightful side discussions—and a city laying pragmatic, data-driven foundations for tomorrow’s mobility systems.
* Under Road & Transport Authority – RTA 🇦🇪 memoranda aiming for supervised trials with safety drivers in 2025 and fully driverless operations by 2026. #Dubai has set a goal of having 25% of its daily transportation be smart and driverless by 2030. In contrast, #AbuDhabi already offers a fully driverless robotaxi service: WeRide has been operating Level 4 vehicles without safety drivers since mid-2025 on two islands.
