Prof. Dr. Christoph Walther

Senior Scientist

Christoph Walther graduated from the University of Ulm with a Diploma in Business Mathematics. With respect to his scientific work at the Institute for Economic Policy and Research, he received a PhD in Economics from the University of Karlsruhe (Prof. Rothengatter). After six years of work with Prognos AG, Basle (Switzerland), he joined PTV (Karlsruhe, Germany) as Transport Economist in 1998 where, as Head of Global Research and authorised officer, he headed the global “Transport Policy & Research” department until the beginning of 2024. Since then, he has been working as a Senior Scientist at M-FIVE GmbH Mobility, Futures, Innovation, Economics in Karlsruhe.

Christoph Walther has over 35 years of experience in the fields of transport planning, transport economics and transport policy. His activities as a scientific advisor are documented in more than eighty national and international research and consulting projects. His work focusses on the development of macroeconomic evaluation procedures for the improvement of transport systems, optimization of the use of transport infrastructure (maintenance planning, civil security of transport infrastructure, resilience, multi-modality) as well as on integrated transport and environmental planning. In 2011, Christoph Walther has been appointed honorary professor for “Transport Economics” after several years of teaching at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Bauhaus University Weimar.

Beside a remarkable list of publications, presentations, and lectures, Christoph Walther is active in different committees: he chaired the working groups “Areas of Application for Assessment Procedures” and “Dynamic Aspects of Investment Planning and Project Evaluation in the Transport Sector” (including the publication of the results as national guidelines) at the German Road and Transportation Research Association (FGSV). In 2014 he became member of the executive board of FGSV and finally, in 2020, shareholder of the FGSV publisher. Since 2019 he belongs to the board of editors of the “Zeitschrift für Verkehrswissenschaft” (German Journal for Transport Sciences) and in this context to the organizers of the (annual) national conference on transport economics and policy.

In 2016, he was appointed member of the Technical Committee “Road Transport System Economics and Social Development” of the World Road Association (PIARC) at the suggestion of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). For the past working cycle of PIARC (2019 – 2023) he took on the role of the scientific coordinator to this Technical Committee.

From 2010 to 2016 he was scientific coordinator for the processes of the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure in Berlin (BMVI). From summer 2015 until the end of 2023, he continued this work for BMDV as scientific consultant and coordinator for the national “Mobility and Fuel Strategy (MKS). As part of this mandate, he was scientific advicer to the working group “Climate Protection in the Transport Sector” of the “National Platform Future Mobility (NPM)”, focussing on railway strategies. Since 2023 he has been supporting the national “Expert Board on Climate Friendly Mobility (EKM)” with a similar range of tasks.

More than this, he was member of the core team “Research and Innovation” of the automotive industry’s strategic dialogue in Baden-Wuerttemberg, where he was chair of the working group “Societal Change” (2019 – 2022). This group worked on necessary social innovations for the mobility transition and initiated a publicly funded reserch network on this topic.

Projects

• Scientific monitoring and support of the “Expert Board on Climate Friendly Mobility (EKM)”
  parts: management team, freight transport, railway strategies, digitalization in the transport sector; on behalf of Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport (BMDV), 2023-2025
• Scientific monitoring and support of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) during the mobility and fuel strategy (MKS)
  parts: member of coordinators’ team, railway strategy and detailed railway studies (electrification, digitalization (European Train Control System ETCS), reactivation of railway links and the European night train network etc.), evaluation of cycling funding programmes for cycling (infrastructure), avoidance costs and efficiency indicators in the context of greenhouse gas reduction; on behalf of Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) or Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport (BMDV), respectively, 2015-2023
• Scientific support and impact calculations regarding climate protection measures in the transport sector, on behalf of Ministry of Transport of the Land Baden-Wuerttemberg, 2020-2021
• Scientific support to the National Platform Mobility of the Future (NPM)

The list shows a selection of our projects. – You can find the complete list of projects here

Publications

• Walther, C.: “Mobility transition – how can this succeed?”, lecture at the annual conference “Recht, Technik und Gesellschaft” of the City of Karlsruhe, October 2023
• Walther, C.: “Rail (infrastructure) investment – the socio-economic perspective”, lecture at the international Rail Summit “The Green Deal”, Frankfurt/Main, October 2023
• Walther, C.: “Emerging methods, practices, and guidelines for determining the economic and social contributions of road transport systems”, report on the results of Technical Committee 1.2 “Road transport planning for economic and social development” at the 27^th World Road Congress, Prag, October 2023
• Doll, C., Kesselring, S., Walther, C.: “Social change as a chance for the mobility transformation“, in: Zukunft der Mobilitätswirtschaft – Empfehlungen der Mobilitätsforschung, published by: Automotive industry’s strategic dialogue in Baden-Wuerttemberg, 2022 https://mwk.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/forschung/strategiedialog-automobilwirtschaft/forschungs-und-innovationsumfeld/
• Walther, C.: “Strategies for the modernization of bridges in partial networks – optimization of the construction sequence”, lecture at the seminar: Bridges in focus, Ingenieur-Akademie West, Düsseldorf, December 2022
• Walther, C.: “Integrated consideration of environmental/climate-targets and infrastructure projects”, lecture as expert for the enquête-commission “Future Mobility for the Land Hessen” of the Federal State Parliament, Wiesbaden, December 2022
• Walther, C.: „A transition towards sustainability”, lecture at the “Energy Masters and Alums Conference”, Technical University, Berlin, September 2022
• Walther, C.: Editorial to „Marginal travel time savings in BCA for projects in the transport sector“ by Andy Obermeyer, in: Zeitschrift für Verkehrswissenschaft, Vol. 2, 2021, pp. 81-87
• Kindl, A., Stadler, A., Walther, C.: Modernisation and reconstruction of civil engineering structures: integration of socio-economic impacts into strategic planning in: reports of Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt), series: Brücken- und Ingenieurbau, Vol. B157: „9. BASt-Tunnelsymposium“, 2021

This is only a section of publicatoins and lectures. – You can find the complete list of publications and lectures here