Net Zero

The Unintended Consequences of Electric Vehicle Incentives

As part of the transition to Net Zero, many jurisdictions are providing incentives to switch to Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs). More thoughtful commentators have pointed out that incentivising BEVs may have unintended consequences. ​This​ research examined travel patterns in Norway, which boasts the world's highest levels of BEV adoption, with 97% of sales now being BEVs and a fleet share approaching 30%.

Key Takeaways

• The desire to move away from ICEs and switch to BEVs has led to the introduction of a range of incentives that have the potential to influence wider transport decisions.
• Norway has implemented a range of incentives and has experienced dramatic increases in BEV ownership.
• These incentives include purchase tax exemptions, low or zero road tolls and access to public transport lanes.
• Despite lower carbon emissions, BEVs still cause a number of other externalities, including particulate matter pollution, noise pollution, safety risks, and congestion.
• The research used travel survey data from 2016 to 2019 for the whole of Norway.
• BEV ownership has led to an overall increase in car use in the order of 10–20% through both increased and longer trips.
• There were marked reductions in public transport trip demand of between 19% and 29%, along with reductions in walking and biking.
• These effects were increased by policies that incentivise BEV use, such as toll road exemptions.
• All this suggests that while BEV usage reduces emissions, it may exacerbate congestion and other externalities.

Comment

Ideally, we would incentivise the switch from ICEs to EVs and mode shift away from motor vehicles altogether. From a technical perspective, the best way to do this would have been to introduce additional costs to ICEs in comparison to EVs, such as through road user or congestion charges. However, this would have been politically challenging. Unsurprisingly, making EVs cheaper has incentivised their use, creating unintended consequences.

Some jurisdictions, such as New Zealand and Iceland, have already begun implementing EV road charging policies (see here). This should produce a better transport system overall moving forward, especially if we implement more sophisticated versions of road charging that allow higher charges during peak times.

What Next?

Are you progressing with an EV road usage charge? Do you need to adjust your EV incentives to prevent a mode shift away from more sustainable forms of transport?

Rail

Great British Railways: The Challenge of Keeping What Worked

The UK is renationalising its railways to create Great British Railways (GBR). This report from the Centre for Policy Studies argues that the current approach to renationalisation risks going back to the problems the last time the railways were in public hands, whilst losing what was good about the privatised railways.

Key Takeaways

• Under privatisation, passenger rail journeys almost doubled (95.9% increase) in the 20 years before the pandemic.
• The railway sector subsidy is £12.5bn whilst delivering between 1.5% and 2% of all journeys taken by the public.
• The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) previously had the power to decide who could use the railways and determine the charges for network access.
• In future, GBR will decide who can run trains. This means the dominant market operator will be in control of its own regulation for network access.
• This has the potential to be catastrophic for ‘open access’ rail, which has delivered some of the most popular and affordable high-speed services.
• Although GBR will have a statutory responsibility to promote rail freight, it will not have targets or protection afforded to the sector.
• In an attempt to avoid a repeat of the 1980s, in which British Rail’s annual budgets helped contribute to a culture of inefficiency, waste, high cost and high subsidy, GBR will look to adopt a fresh financial framework, most probably via five-year budgets.
• Ministers have failed to set out their longer-term vision for the railways in the 2030s and beyond.
• The report suggests a four-part plan:
  • Support and promote open access
  • Encourage innovation and competition
  • Support rail freight
  • Maximise income from the wider railway estate, including commercial, residential, hospitality, property and energy sector opportunities.

Comment

There are examples of both good and bad nationalised railways, as well as good and bad privatised railways. The UK's privatised railways certainly had their problems, which ultimately made nationalising the railways very popular. However, when it came to passenger growth, it was very successful.

The trick for the UK will be to maintain what was working on the privatised system whilst fixing the problems.

The four-part plan the report sets out would be relevant to many jurisdictions - the rail sector is generally not very good at innovation, rail freight struggles in many countries (although this often has a lot to do with road policy), and the sector is often poor at using its wider railway estate to generate revenues.

Time will tell whether the newly nationalised railways will be a success.

What next?

Are you clear on your vision for your railways? Have you got the governance and incentives right to increase passenger numbers, encourage innovation, grow rail freight and maximise income from the wider railway estate?

Demand Management

Windows of Opportunity: Leveraging Life Transitions to Promote Walking, Cycling and Public Transport

To improve our transport systems, we need to encourage more people to use sustainable modes. However, getting people to change strongly ingrained habits is not easy.

However, what if we look to make interventions before habits have formed, for example, after people have experienced a change that requires creating new habits? ​This​ paper from the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at the University of Sydney looks into that possibility.

Key Takeaways

• The focus of this paper is on identifying windows of change - the moments in life when individuals are more likely to be influenced to change their travel behaviour.
• The paper identified 71 influences, categorised into four broad areas:
  • Lifestyle and household changes (e.g., changes in living arrangements, family structure, or personal habits)
  • Work and commuting-related changes (e.g., changes in employment, workplace incentives or commuting patterns)
  • Transport and mobility changes (e.g., changes in vehicle ownership, public transport use or travel habits), and
  • Social and environmental considerations (including awareness and influence of others).
• Data was collected from over 4,000 respondents spread across Australia, Finland, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Sweden.
• The data covers the period 2023–2025.
• The study identified parenthood as a key life stage during which individuals tend to shift away from more sustainable transport modes.
• Twenty-five future actions were identified that demonstrate evidence of making a real difference in changing travel habits in ways that support sustainable mobility.
• The best future actions were employer-incentives, public transport network improvements, and marketing and communication campaigns to educate the community on the environmental, health and wellbeing benefits of particular travel habits, and incentives to use active travel modes.
• However, simply offering attractive alternatives to the convenience of car use will not achieve the desired switch to sustainable mobility.
• Reducing car ownership or owning no cars is the most powerful antidote to switching to other modes.
• The presence of free parking at the office, as well as conversion to electric cars (with charging facilities provided at the office), is a recipe likely to continue to support growth and high modal share for car travel.

Comment

This paper was very useful for understanding how changes in people's circumstances impact their mode choices. However, it is clear that simply targeting interventions at the moments of change will likely only have a marginal impact, unless we make the car less desirable, such as by removing free parking and introducing road user charges. However, these remain politically challenging.

What next?

Incorporate these findings into your travel demand management strategies.

Quick Adventures in Transport Wonderland

Here is what I came across this week:

• How can you unlock the potential of train stations? This report looked at some stations in the UK.
• ​Helsinki goes a full year without a traffic death​
• This blog looked at why when sometimes you increase the price of parking, demand for a space increases.
• ​The use of tram trains to support through running.​
• The Freewheeling blog explained how the Swiss would have done HS2.

Blog

Why American Transit Is Designed to Fail

This week, my blog looked at how America is treating transit as a welfare program and as a consequence, is only getting 4% of Americans to use it.

Innovation

A Remote-Driven Taxi Service

The world’s first public remote-driven taxi service has launched in Tallinn.

Tool

Pedestrian Crossing Analysis

A tool for automatically measuring the distance at pedestrian crossings.