Professor Jillian Anable of the University of Leeds’ Institute for Transport Studies told an event on decarbonising transport yesterday that, broadly, there are two ways in which the sector can reduce emissions. “The first is to get rid of fossil fuels in the system, whether it is cars, planes, trains or buses,” she said.

“The second is to use vehicles that use fossil fuels less. The more you do of one the less you have to do of the other.” The first approach, she explained, may be more politically acceptable, but she emphasised that – based on the level of carbon reduction needed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 – “technical solutions are not going to get us there quickly enough”.

“We would have to stop selling petrol and diesel tomorrow because of how long they stay in the fleet,” she said.

Professor Anable also called for a new approach to appraising transport initiatives. “Journey times are no longer relevant on a planet that is screaming for help,” she said, urging policies to be appraised for their impacts on emissions, with early carbon savings valued more than savings later on.

The event also heard about the need for changes to the way people pay for use of the roads. Professor Stephen Glaister of Imperial College London’s Centre for Transport Studies acknowledged the political difficulty of introducing a system of road pricing, but urged fuel duty to be increased as an interim measure.

“We have to worry much more about price and taxation if we are to succeed in moving towards zero carbon,” he said, adding that this can also help to address the problem of congestion. “Getting market scale adoption of electric vehicles will take a long time,” he added, but changing taxation yields revenues and has an effect “almost immediately”.

Professor Glaister also called for ‘incremental’ revenue gathered from raising fuel duty to be ringfenced for use by local authorities to deliver transport initiatives.

Also addressing the event – organised by the Transport Knowledge Hub – was the University of the West of England’s Mott MacDonald professor of future mobility Glenn Lyons. He agreed that there will be “challenging trade offs to contend with” in moving towards net zero, and emphasised that clarity over policy direction is key.

He called for more time and resource to go into helping people understand why change is needed, how it is being delivered and what it will mean for them. “It must be expected that travel behaviour will need to change,” Professor Lyons said. However he added: “We should be clear that dialling down motorised mobility does not mean dialling down accessibility.”

He also said regulatory measures and pricing will be needed to encourage behaviours. “Urgent consideration should be given to how today’s technology could support personalised mobility pricing.”

Transportation Professional’s March issue, published next week, includes a Climate Action special.

(Photograph: Lana Elcova - Shutterstock)