The Parliamentary Transport Committee’s report on strategic road investment published today recognises that the Government is gambling with our future when it comes to decarbonisation.

Having led the Road Investment Scrutiny Panel (RISP) with Professor Steve Gooding which reported earlier this year (with Professors Jillian Anable, Nicola Christie, Zoe Davies, Stephen Glaister, Phil Goodwin, & Karen Lucas, supported by Andrew Crudgington) I provided written & oral evidence to the Committee’s Inquiry.

The Committee’s report centres upon:

🚗 the Govt’s risky approach to decarbonisation

🚗 a need for Govt to prioritise maintenance & renewal over costly enhancement projects

🚗 optimism bias in scheme planning & delivery

🚗 a need for robust & transparent measures to assess deliverability

🚗 the need for better engagement with sub-national transport bodies

The report body is only 25 pages long – give it a read. I want to cover here the risky approach to decarbonisation.

In our RISP report we asked “What would make us feel confident that decisions on future road investment, at both the scheme & aggregate level, are consistent with the legal obligation to deliver a credible pathway to the decarbonisation of the UK economy by 2050?”. We went on to recommend that Govt should “publish a projection of the change in vehicle miles by carbon-emitting vehicles necessary or prudent to stay within an acceptable carbon reduction trajectory”.

When I gave oral evidence I wanted to press the point, asking is Govt a gambler or a steward?

During the Inquiry there was insistence from the Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom that “The focus of UK Government policy is on driving the transition to zero emission vehicles so that people can drive without contributing to carbon emissions. That is the focus, rather than targets for reduced road usage”.

I was meanwhile quoted as having “characterised the Government’s reliance on a cleaner vehicle fleet to decarbonise transport as a “gamble”“…”You can bet on some possible combinations of factors that would allow us to continue to rely on using the road network much as we have, but there are many, many combinations of uncertain factors where we would be gambling and losing” (drawing upon recent modelling work from the RAC Foundation – h/t Doreen Lam & Ivo Wengraf – which asked “Is it necessary to reduce car mileage to meet our carbon emission goals?”). This concern was underlined by evidence from Professor Greg Marsden also quoted in the report.

The Committee concludes that:

“The Government’s determination to accommodate demand for new roads through investment without also considering steps to manage that demand is a risky strategy.”

“The Government should model & report on scenarios where traffic levels on the SRN are a) reduced & b) maintained at current levels, alongside the transition to a cleaner vehicle fleet, in order to assess the potential contribution of demand management to reaching net zero.”