For most people, mobility choices are largely limited to either personal transport – motorised or otherwise – or local bus and train services. Those living in towns and cities might add choices of underground trains or trams, bikes or car share services.

But the choices are changing.

Launched in spring 2020, the UK government’s ‘Future of Transport’ regulatory review saw a £90m funding boost for trials of transport innovations in three new future transport zones (FTZs). Those trials included everything from people making smarter, greener changes to their everyday travel decisions – such as taking an e-scooter or bike rather than a car for short journeys – to innovative ways to transport goods such as delivering medical supplies by drone.

At the launch of the review, UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “Emerging technologies are ripping up the rulebook and changing the way people and goods move forever. Our ground-breaking future of transport programme marks the biggest review of transport laws in a generation and will pave the way for exciting new transport technology to be tested, cementing the UK’s position as a world-leading innovator.”

Joining the existing West Midlands Future of Transport Zone, the three new zones named in the review were: Portsmouth and Southampton; the West of England Combined Authority; and Derby and Nottingham.

The projects involved in each area are both new and familiar. In Derby and Nottingham, the goal was to encourage uptake of public transport as well as bike hire, car clubs and electric vehicles. The funding was designed to help to create a website and app to provide improved information on transport choices and also to simplify payments for people when travelling, so there’s no need to fuss around with multiple accounts.

“We’re looking at new technologies and schemes to help people travel sustainably around the city for years to come,” said Alicia Rudzka from Derby Council. “We’ve also worked with partners to introduce DerbyGo, the biggest trial of green travel mobility in Europe. The app is not only encouraging and allowing more flexible and efficient journeys, but is also contributing to a greener environment.”

That’s something that the West of England Combined Authority is introducing too – a single platform either online or through your smartphone for multiple modes of transport. Elsewhere, there are also trials of self-driving cars to transport people between Bristol Airport, central Bath and across northern Somerset.

Get in the zone

Meanwhile, the Solent Future Transport Zone for Portsmouth and Southampton –working in partnership with University of Southampton – is running an e-bike share scheme as well as three trials of rental e-scooters that would otherwise be illegal on public land.

Research on the trials so far have shown that around 40% of e-scooter trips would have been otherwise made by car, making an impact on congestion and local air quality. It has been such a success that both Portsmouth and Southampton are looking to extend the trial.

Professor John Preston, part of the transportation group at the University of Southampton, admitted that the timing of the introduction of the Solent zone was problematic because of the pandemic, which led to big changes in personal and freight transport. However, he added that changing working patterns did present an opportunity for researchers working on the zone.

“Personal mobility and sustainable urban logistics have a parity of prominence in the Solent zone and that interaction between passenger and freight transport is becoming increasingly important as we change our travel patterns between home, work and leisure,” he reasoned.

At the time of writing, a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) app, developed by Trafi, is going through a soft launch in the region and there are more developments planned for the next 12 months. “On the passenger side, the aim this year is to have a successful roll-out of the MaaS app and also to add more transport interventions over and above e-scooters,” revealed Preston. “For example, bike shares, lift-sharing and mobility credits. On the freight side, we will look at the development of sustainable freight centres and micro logistics concepts, such as deliveries in city centres.” The year after will be used to assess whether these trials have made a meaningful difference, said Preston.

Carbon-efficient drones

Looking upwards, Solent Transport has also been trialling drone flights between the mainland and the Isle of Wight specifically for the creation of new systems for ongoing medical deliveries to the island. The drones can improve the level of care that the NHS provides to those in the Solent region by reducing the time it takes to make deliveries to the Isle of Wight by 75%.

Moving those NHS logistics off the road also means reduced congestion and improved air quality, while increasing the speed with which hospitals can receive test results or get vital medicine to patients.

“The possibility the drone deliveries for the NHS create, if the trials are successful, could provide a quality of life improvement to the Solent community and particularly to access to health and wellbeing for those on the island,” said Cllr Lynne Stagg, chair of the Solent Transport Joint Committee.

Conrad Haigh, Solent’s transport manager, pointed out that the drone trials will continue until summer 2024, with the ambition to make the case then to use them on a regular basis. Some medicines such as chemotherapy drugs can be very time-sensitive and the use of drones means they can take those drugs to the patient on the Isle of Wight rather than the patient coming to the mainland. It’s also 17 times more carbon-efficient.

This drone programme is a perfect example of how ‘future’ FTZs might work too. E-scooter trials, better integrated apps and more car clubs and bike hire schemes are all in use in one form or another already within the UK and will undoubtedly be rolled out into wider communities. In the longer term, more individual solutions to local problems will also be seen with similar drone trials to the Isle of Wight already underway on the Isles of Scilly and the Scottish Islands.

From drones to life-saving drugs, it seems that the future of greener transport could be here sooner than you think.

(Image Source: Shutterstock)

Secure your place

Dont miss the Future Transport Zones – What can Bristol Learn from the Solent FTZ? webinar with John Preston, Professor at the University of Southampton.

23 February 2022, 17:30-18:30 / Webinar / Free to CIHT Members

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