Sustainability

What 791 Cities Reveal About Decarbonising Transport

One of the mistakes we are making in decarbonising transport is relying too heavily on vehicle electrification and not enough on reducing car use to solve the problem. This research analysed what cities around the world are doing to reduce car use.

Key Takeaways

• The research grouped cities according to the reported number of Avoid or Shift actions to reduce car use and ownership.
• 335 (42%) cities reported no action at all on transport – effectively maintaining a business-as-usual stance to car use.
• 104 cities reported taking only "improve" actions:

• The main finding was that even amongst the 56 highest-scoring cities for avoid and shift, reported action to reduce car use and ownership using economic pull and push measures was limited.
• All of the interviewees described such measures as politically challenging to implement and highlighted the importance of first building public support.
• Policy stability, political commitment to climate action and public engagement support implementation of more car reduction measures.
• Successful implementation of car reduction measures may be due to durable sustainable transport policies and communication of the co-benefits of reducing car use.
• Cities struggling report policy volatility, lack of resources for engagement, and single-benefit framing, e.g., to address air pollution or congestion.
• Even cities reporting action across multiple avoid and shift categories are implementing very few stick measures, which are more effective than carrots in reducing car use.

Comment

This research is damning in the actions being taken to reduce carbon emissions.

The research only included those cities that report to the Carbon Disclosure Project. These are cities that are more supportive of taking action against carbon emissions, and still 42% are doing nothing at all, and many more are doing nothing beyond electrification.

Our current approach to decarbonisation of transport is failing, and the main barrier appears to be aligning effective measures with public support.

Unless we find ways to increase public support or use tools that are both effective and have community support (or at least avoid outright hostility), we are not going to make sufficient progress.

What Next?

How well is your community doing on pulling levers to reduce carbon emissions?

Rail

Four Futures for European Rail (and the One Threat They Missed)

What is the future for railways? This report from the European Parliament's think tank examined different scenarios for the future of railways in the EU.

Key Takeaways

• Funding and financing are the dominant constraint, with track access charges covering only a limited share of the costs.
• The future trajectory of European rail is less constrained by technological feasibility than by governance coherence, investment capacity and effective system integration.

Scenarios:

• Scenario I focuses on decentralised corridor implementation and incremental technology adoption. Progress in interoperability, capacity utilisation and cross-border continuity remains uneven.
• Scenario II assumes central network planning and centralised network implementation. Mature rail technologies deliver more robust and scalable gains in reliability, capacity utilisation and resilience, allowing the conventional rail system to perform more coherently as a European network without reliance on disruptive innovation.
• Scenario III considers decentralised rail policies implementing national projects of transformative technology. In this scenario, technological progress alone does not overcome structural constraints related to governance, funding and system integration.
• Scenario IV assumes a centralised high-speed rail system with the most advanced technology. This scenario offers the greatest potential for profound travel time reductions and new network effects at European scale, but it also entails substantial uncertainty, financial commitment and institutional complexity.
• Strengthening governance frameworks and ensuring stable, coordinated investment emerges as a precondition for realising system-wide value.

Policy Options:

• Policy Option 1 – Implementation and System Delivery focuses on closing the gap between existing EU ambitions and actual system performance by accelerating implementation, interoperability and operational consistency.
• Policy Option 2 – European High-Speed Rail Integration aims to maximise modal shift by developing high-speed rail as a coherent European network rather than a set of nationally fragmented projects.
• Policy Option 3 – Digitalisation and Operational Optimisation seeks to unlock additional capacity, resilience and freight competitiveness through coordinated digital tools, automation and data governance.
• Policy Option 4 – Demand-Led Multimodal Integration addresses rail performance from the demand side by improving door-to-door journeys for passengers and logistics chains for freight.
• Policy Option 5 – European Ultra-High-Speed Strategic Infrastructure explores the development of these systems as a distinct, EU-level network layer, fully planned, funded, and regulated at European level.

Comment

I believe that rail networks are an essential part of successful future transport systems, but this report has a significant blind spot - autonomous cars.

In the future, privately owned autonomous cars could be much more competitive with rail than human-driven vehicles are today as passengers can work and play whilst travelling in a car (a significant advantage that rail enjoys today).

If this issue is not addressed, such as through road user charging of autonomous vehicles, the loss of patronage will significantly undermine the financial sustainability of rail moving forward.

What Next?

Does your rail strategy consider the implications of changes in other modes that compete with rail?

Autonomous Vehicles

The AV Rollout Question Every City Needs to Ask

One thing every city should be thinking about right now is the impact that Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) will have as they roll out. This report looks at how it might impact New York City.

Key Takeaways

• Replacing a high-volume for-hire vehicle in New York City with a robotaxi would increase vehicle miles travelled and congestion.
• New York City’s constrained parking supply would likely dramatically increase Waymo’s deadheading if deployed in the city, leading to more traffic and wear on the streets.

A more effective regulatory environment:

• Require robotaxi companies to compare their safety data to professional, for-hire vehicle drivers as a prerequisite to licensure to operate.
• Require data transparency from robotaxi companies to conduct critical analyses.
• Prepare fees to adequately capture and reduce the impact of robotaxis on our streets. One or a combination of the following:
  • A vehicle miles travelled fee, which would be levied for every mile a robotaxi drives.
  • A vehicle hours fee, which would charge robotaxi operators based on the total time a vehicle occupies a given highly congested zone (like the Central Business District)
  • Parking and curb use fees, which would properly price robotaxis’ potential impact on our curbs.
• Stop centering single-use vehicles and consider how automated public transit can fill holes in our transit system.
• Consider limiting robotaxis’ ability to travel within dense, transit-rich commercial areas.
• Expand for-hire vehicle pick-up/drop-off zones.
• Manage licensing and control deployment to prevent excessive robotaxi vehicle miles traveled growth.

Comment

I broadly agree with the analysis of the paper and agree with many of the recommendations, such as on 'fees'.

However, whilst the pick-up/drop-off zones recommendation is to reduce double parking and increased congestion, we should not be providing AVs with more public land. Instead, NYC should implement much higher penalties for AVs that do not pick up and drop off according to rules.

What Next?

Are you planning sufficiently for the rollout of AVs in your city?

Quick Adventures in Transport Wonderland

Here is what else I came across this week:

• ​Stop treating all car drivers the same - a blog arguing that treating drivers all the same is unfair and politically counterproductive, leading to a backlash.
• ​Lessons from Sweden on co-investing in transportation to increase housing production - research from Brookings on leveraging transport to increase housing.
• ​Speeding incurs substantial environmental and economic costs nationwide for negligible travel time savings - research into the negative consequences of speeding beyond safety.