A New Look at Making Sustainable Transport Work for Everyone
There is a lot of talk about ‘what’ changes are needed to decarbonise transport, but far less attention is paid to ‘how’ the change is managed. Are we expecting too much of politicians? Who has the untapped capability to close the gap between transport policy and what happens in practice? In this new paper we argue that the business of transport must be better designed for implementing social and environmental policies.
Rather than viewing social and environmental value as external to transport business models, or as a cost to the economy, regulating transport differently using new performance metrics could create new value to grow the transport economy. The new business models can be developed incrementally alongside current transport business models allowing the transport economy to change as it grows away from its dependence on increased travel demand.
Sustainable approaches require complex trade-offs between economic, environmental and social factors that have proved to be too complex to resolve through national fiscal and regulatory mechanisms. A new approach is needed which frames transport markets differently so that the most complex issues are resolved at a simpler level than national policy. The new socially designed business models all require some form of regulation, ranging from additional environmental criteria in vehicle insurance requirements, to more widespread pricing of carbon emissions, allowing a better targeted approach to sustainable transport.
The new paper has been developed by transport system designer Derek Halden, market design expert Angus Macpherson, and logistics expert Professor Alan McKinnon.
Download the new paper and let us know what you think. The paper is designed to help move the conversation forward, and STSG will hold a seminar in the near future to discuss these issues. Please get in touch if you would like to be involved.
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The Smart Freight Centre has published a report about how net-zero business models for freight could be developed suggesting new accounting and reporting standards for the freight sector
https://www.dpdhl.com/content/dam/dpdhl/en/media-center/media-relations/documents/2020/dgf-carbon-insets-white-paper-smart-freight.pdf
One byelection result has undone years of progress : PM Rishi Sunak “The vast majority of people in the country use their cars to get around and are dependent on cars. I just want to make sure people know that I’m on their side in supporting them to use their cars to do all the things that matter to them.”
Be careful what you wish for! I had often hoped that transport could acquire a higher political profile, but never imagined that this might entail the Prime Minister declaring he was halting a “war on motorists”.
Alex Salmond had many virtues, but being pro-rail wasn’t one of them. He opposed Edinburgh Trams and cancelled both the Edinburgh and Glasgow Airport Rail Links. His pledge to reduce journey times on the Highland Main Line went undelivered, and he warmed to the Borders Railway too late to reverse the decision on single-tracking much of the route. He scaled back the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme, leaving Edinburgh Gateway served only towards Fife, but at least his Government remained committed to electrification of the core route and the lines to Dunblane and Alloa. In transport terms he will be remembered for abolishing the Forth and Tay Road Bridge tolls and for taking forward the Forth Replacement Crossing.
After a promising start to devolution which continued until Indyref and Brexit, we have become used to government by press release where bold statements of intent are followed by years of seemingly clueless inactivity while the can is kicked down the road until the minister of the day is forced to own up that there was no plan and funds are unavailable. Such has been the fate of decarbonisation, fares reform, modal shift and worst of all social care, and the fleets of CalMac and ScotRail have been left to age under a welter of regulatory agencies. Of course, Westminster gets the blame, having sometimes set complacent targets which incited the Scottish Government to go over the top, but the money has gone into free university tuition, prescriptions and personal care, and the price that we pay is the decline of devolution which has effectively now gone into a sort of receivership.
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