The expected speed and impacts of vehicle automation in passenger and freight transport: a Dissensus Delphi study among UK professionals

Vehicle automation is one of the most researched topics in transport studies but much remains uncertain about the speed of adoption and potential impacts, including if and how it can contribute to greater environmental sustainability. This study adopts a Delphi approach to examine the speed with which 15% of new vehicles will be automated (SAE-3, SAE-4 or SAE-5) and what impacts automation may have on motility, mobility, resource use and externalities in both passenger and freight transport. Although challenges with recruitment mean that all findings must be caveated and seen as exploratory, the analysis demonstrates considerable dissensus regarding the expected speed and impacts of vehicle automation in both passenger and freight transport among the participants. For both aspects, a diversity of views remains once participants were informed about the expectations of other panellists. The range of views is organised around the axes of optimism and certainty about what may happen. Considerable differences between passenger and freight transport can be identified for potential impacts of vehicle automation but not for speed of adoption

Sociotechnical expectations of vehicle automation in the UK trucking sector

Expectations about emerging innovations are an important part of innovation pathways that can help to overcome uncertainties and build hype. Such sociotechnical expectations have been studied extensively by social scientists but the focus is often on collective, widely shared expectations and much less on individuals’ specific expectations. Examining the latter can nonetheless aid understanding of the development of, buy-in into and power dynamics around collective sociotechnical expectations. This paper therefore examines individually articulated expectations about vehicle automation in trucking in the UK. It draws on 61 in-depth interviews with freight transport actors, including truck drivers, freight company management, industry representatives, and government departments. It demonstrates alignment of individual expectations on some aspects of vehicle automation, including the difficulty of expression them in terms of chronological (calendar) time and the belief that automation will be quicker and easier on motorways than on other kinds of road. Multiple differences in expectations are identified, in particular regarding the practical feasibility of truck platooning and the role of truck drivers. In all cases, it is clear that individual expectations are shaped strongly by people’s current and past professional experience and practices and how these have been affected by wider technological and organisational changes in the freight and logistics sector

Introduction: new directions in energy demand research

Meeting the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement and limiting global temperature increases to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels demands rapid reductions in global carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing energy demand has a central role in achieving this goal, but existing policy initiatives have been largely incremental in terms of the technological and behavioural changes they encourage. Against this background, this book develops a sociotechnical approach to the challenge of reducing energy demand and illustrates this with a number of empirical case studies from the United Kingdom. In doing so, it explores the emergence, diffusion and impact of low-energy innovations. This chapter introduces the main themes of the book, including explorations of the processes and mechanisms through which different types of innovations become (or fail to become) established, the identification of the role of different groups, assessments of the resulting impacts on energy demand and other social goals, and the development of recommendations for both encouraging the diffusion of such innovations and maximising their long-term impact

Urban Freight Research (1972-2014)

The transportation sector is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and consequently, anthropogenic climate change. Transitioning to low-carbon policies, technologies and behaviours could provide opportunities for emissions reductions. Yet to date, there is little evidence of a meaningful and systemic low-carbon transport transition. Moreover, while there is some evidence of fossil fuel intensive private transport ‘peaking’, freight movements are growing. The urban freight industry in particular has undergone rapid transformation as social practices alter in the wake of information communication technologies and the Internet. Simultaneously, academic interest in urban freight delivery has grown. This paper represents the first attempt to take stock of this burgeoning literature, to sketch out the landscape, and to illuminate research gaps and priorities going forward. It presents the results of a quantitative systematic review of urban freight literature (n=265, 1972-2014), and a qualitative thematic review of a sub-sample of the literature (n=35) that were determined to have a sustainability focus. The paper reports on descriptive characteristics of the field, including the growth and direction of research, geographic focus and research themes. Findings are discussed in light of the need for radical GHG emissions reductions, and the contribution that urban freight research can make to this end

Imagining post-fossil tourism mobilities with Norwegian tourists

Sustainable mobility has become a catch-all term to describe forms, modes, policies and practices of mobility that are thought to have a lower environmental footprint and/or fewer social exclusions than the contemporary mobility system which is reliant on fossil fuels and private ownership. As a result, its main application has been in urban mobility contexts, often focused on everyday commuting journeys. In this paper we re-visit sustainable mobilities through the lens of tourism sustainabilities, a concept that opens space for multiple, contingent operations of sustainability for tourism mobilities. We draw empirically from qualitative interviews with 26 residents from Oslo (Norway) undertaken in 2020 to answer two questions: (1) How are tourism sustainabilities imagined and enacted by residents of the Oslo region, Norway, and (2) What (re)imaginings of tourism sustainabilities are made possible? Attentive to the sociomaterial nature of tourism sustainabilities and drawing from critical sustainabilities scholarship, we present three enactments of tourism mobilities: Forming sustainabilities; Fragmenting sustainabilities; Fracturing sustainabilities, and three (re)imaginings: Stripped Back; Having a Go; Stuck in the Mud. The social geographies of tourism mobilities are made visible, and these open space for an expansive reading of sustainable mobilities which may enable deeper understandings of the possibilities for alternative forms of mobility in a climate constrained world

Travel discontinuities, enforced holidaying-at-home and alternative leisure travel futures after COVID-19

Jens Kr. Steen Jacobsen, Eivind Farstad, James Higham, Debbie Hopkins & Iratxe Landa-Mata (2023) Travel discontinuities, enforced holidaying-at-home and alternative leisure travel futures after COVID-19, Tourism Geographies, 25:2-3, 615-633, DOI: 10.1080/14616688.2021.1943703The paralysis of global tourism caused by COVID-19 made it possible to conduct a unique and nearly real-time online survey to investigate adaptations and reactions to sudden severe leisure travel restrictions among residents in the Oslo metropolitan area of Norway during the 2020 Easter/spring holiday period. Stress relief, socialising, social bonds and discoveries of local recreation options were important home holiday experiences. Vacation challenges under lockdown included few opportunities for novelty and the chance of liminoid situations – reversal or bracketing of everyday routine existence. The enforced Easter staycation advanced reflections on impending leisure travel, indicating limited opportunities to boost future low-carbon near-home Easter holiday experiences. Path dependencies towards second homes and spatially stretched social obligations, as well as emphasis on freedom of movement, ostensibly constrain vacation travel habit discontinuities at this time of the year.publishedVersio

Imagining sustainable energy and mobility transitions: valence, temporality, and radicalism in 38 visions of a low-carbon future

Based on an extensive synthesis of semi-structured interviews, media content analysis, and reviews, this article conducts a qualitative meta-analysis of more than 560 sources of evidence to identify 38 visions associated with seven different low-carbon innovations – automated mobility, electric vehicles, smart meters, nuclear power, shale gas, hydrogen, and the fossil fuel divestment movement – playing a key role in current deliberations about mobility or low-carbon energy supply and use. From this material, it analyzes such visions based on rhetorical features such as common problems and functions, storylines, discursive struggles, and rhetorical effectiveness. It also analyzes visions based on typologies or degrees of valence (utopian vs. dystopian), temporality (proximal vs. distant), and radicalism (incremental vs. transformative). The article is motivated by the premise that tackling climate change via low-carbon energy systems (and practices) is one of the most significant challenges of the twenty-first century, and that effective decarbonization will require not only new energy technologies, but also new ways of understanding language, visions, and discursive politics surrounding emerging innovations and transitions

Sociodemographic and Built Environment Associates of Travel to School by Car among New Zealand Adolescents: Meta-Analysis.

Travelling to school by car diminishes opportunities for physical activity and contributes to traffic congestion and associated noise and air pollution. This meta-analysis examined sociodemographic characteristics and built environment associates of travelling to school by car compared to using active transport among New Zealand (NZ) adolescents. Four NZ studies (2163 adolescents) provided data on participants' mode of travel to school, individual and school sociodemographic characteristics, distance to school and home-neighbourhood built-environment features. A one-step meta-analysis using individual participant data was performed in SAS. A final multivariable model was developed using stepwise logistic regression. Overall, 60.6% of participants travelled to school by car. When compared with active transport, travelling to school by car was positively associated with distance to school. Participants residing in neighbourhoods with high intersection density and attending medium deprivation schools were less likely to travel to school by car compared with their counterparts. Distance to school, school level deprivation and low home neighbourhood intersection density are associated with higher likelihood of car travel to school compared with active transport among NZ adolescents. Comprehensive interventions focusing on both social and built environment factors are needed to reduce car travel to school