Óscar Puente appoints Sara Hernández del Olmo as Secretary General for Sustainable Mobility, who will be responsible for defining the direction that MITMA will take in its strategy for the decarbonisation of transport.
In this context, Mobility Portal España analyses the recent statements made in her work as Director of Transport, Logistics and Mobility at Deloitte.
The new head of the post has argued that, in order to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, it is essential to overcome infrastructure barriers and promote cultural change, among other aspects.
During a forum organized by 20minutos, he pointed out which policies the administration should promote to achieve this.
“Promoting public-private collaboration is an essential issue,” she said.
The reason? “It will facilitate and unblock certain bottlenecks in the adaptation of new mobility models,” she said.
And not only that.
She also stressed the importance of integrating personalized fares and transport-as-a-service models, which facilitate user access to various mobility options, thus ensuring success, especially in cities.
“I want to pay a rate, like the one you pay for mobile phone usage based on what you want to consume, adapted to my needs and that integrates the entire mobility ecosystem,” she said.
She added: “This must be strongly promoted by the public administration.”
This responds to a current trend where car ownership is declining and a growing number of young people are showing no interest in purchasing their own vehicle.
In this regard, she highlighted shared mobility as a topic that generates “very good press and image” for this sector.
Why?
“Because if there is uncertainty about how an electric car will work, having one and being able to experience it directly could be an effective marketing strategy to boost its adoption ,” she said.
In this way, the paradigm of the internal combustion vehicle, owned and not connected, is changing towards the electric, shared, connected and autonomous one.
User-centric strategy
The new Secretary General emphasises that individuals are at the centre of all decisions relating to sustainable mobility.
According to Hernández, there are five main vectors —technology, regulation, user, economy and environment—that are interconnected, converging on a central axis: the user.
In her statements published in media such as ABC, she points out that decarbonisation requires more than the implementation of clean technologies.
This process also requires a multidisciplinary approach that integrates adapted infrastructures, changes in mobility models and sustainable practices in the supply chain.
One of the recurring themes in her speeches has been the need for uniform regulations to facilitate the implementation of clean technologies.
“There is currently no cross-cutting regulatory framework across all local administrations,” she said, which creates “uncertainty” for both businesses and citizens.
To address this gap, she has advocated for closer public-private collaboration, where government agencies facilitate change while organizations lead innovation.
Hernandez’s roadmap in the sector
With more than 15 years of experience, Hernández del Olmo, a civil engineer and doctor in Transport from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, could bring a technical and analytical approach to her new position.
Her time at Deloitte, where he led the Transport, Logistics and Mobility area, has allowed her to get involved in studies on the current state of the electric vehicle and the pending challenges to meet European climate objectives.
It specializes in the development of policies aimed at sustainable transport, as well as in the planning and functional design of transport infrastructure and intermodal logistics systems.
She also has experience in market analysis, preparation of business plans, design of operating models and carrying out feasibility and structuring studies.
Her work as a researcher at the TRANSyT Research Center gave her an academic perspective on the dynamics of urban mobility.
She has numerous publications in scientific journals and sectoral mobility conferences.
Hernández has also been a professor in the Department of Transport at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and a teacher in various master’s degrees, courses and seminars.
