Role of connected mobility concept for twenty-first-century cities—Trial approach for conceptualization of connected mobility through case studies

•Definition of mobility design is discussed with comprehensive management.•Bus terminal designing process case with different stakeholders is discussed.•Community bus planning case with integration with existing bus is discussed.•Bike sharing trial experiment in a university campus is introduced.•Proposal of connected mobility strategy is described comprehensively.

This paper discusses the concept of mobility in twenty-first-century cities. Although the issues with which cities now grapple are vastly different from the problems that they confronted in the twentieth century, we continue to live on a foundation that was laid over the years of the past. From that perspective, we need to understand that the destructive reform—“innovation”—so crucial to the mobility on which urban activity depends cannot necessarily ignore the cumulative knowledge we have heretofore amassed.The author defined the idea of “mobility design” in the scope of urban transportation and explored the concept of connected mobility through case studies that the author has been involved in or researched. Although many important connections in and approaches to urban transportation have come to light, the process of actually working on such projects has uncovered many issues to address such as sharing and social capital. The ability to design mobility as a connected entity and pursue our research topics from that perspective will be vital to overcoming the issues highlighted above and helping the concept of connected mobility flourish.