How to Decarbonise Transport | Professor Brian Caulfield

How to Decarbonise Transport with Brian Caulfield | Conversations on Climate – Episode 18

Welcome to Episode 19 of Season 2 in the Conversations on Climate podcast series, where we tackle the most pressing environmental challenges of our era.

Transport makes up a huge part of our emissions – around 20-25% in Ireland and the UK, and closer to 40% in the US.  

 Should we get behind a big public transport push – a metro for every city? 

 Is the answer self-driving EV’s? Or redesigning cities to be car-free? 

 Should we use big data for efficient car-sharing? Or is the answer behaviour change, under the cosh of mandated charges and zoning laws? 

 This episode’s guest understands that complexity better than anyone. And his number one policy priority?  

Do it all – now! 

Introducing Brian Caulfield 

This week’s guest is a leader in the field of sustainable transport science. Brian Caulfield is Professor in Transportation, and Head of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, where he works on the frontier of decarbonising transport systems.  

As well as academia – with over two hundred papers and €7m in research grants to his name – Brian is also active in the policy world, addressing the Citizen’s Assembly and working as an advisor to the Climate Change Advisory Council of Ireland.

“… we’re doing this for a greater good and we’re trying to make all these changes to make our cities and everything else better and more clean, more healthy…”

“… I think that the key thing that I would say to the listeners is to listen, engage, and proactively engage. And because it’s going to impact upon all of us…”

Key Topics Covered:

* The Global Climate Crisis and Its Impact on Ireland
* Sustainable Urban Planning and Reducing City Centre Traffic
* The Role of Parks and Green Spaces in Urban Areas
* Autonomous and Electric Vehicles: The Future of Transport
* Low Emission Zones and Their Effectiveness
* Grassroots Environmental Activism and Policy Change

Episode Highlights:

* In-depth discussion on cutting-edge solutions for transport decarbonisation
* Insights into the convergence of transport, urban planning, and environmental policy
* Engaging dialogue on the significant impact of small, sustainable changes

Why Watch?

* Discover valuable insights into sustainable transport solutions
* Understand the vital role of policy and individual actions in combating climate change
* Learn about the latest developments in electric and autonomous vehicles
* Explore practical ways to contribute to a cleaner, greener planet

🔔 Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates and enjoy these insightful discussions as much as we do.

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Produced by United Renewables in Association with Trinity College, Dublin.

REFERENCES:

Trinity College Dublin page: https://tinyurl.com/ypskqqfl

Brian’s Linkedin page: https://tinyurl.com/ytsoh2ja

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We’re doing this for a greater good and we’re trying to make all of these changes to make our cities and everything else better and more clean the global climate crisis that we’re in at the moment has never been more acute and we’ve seen that even this week in Ireland flooding

Everywhere little impacts all start to snowball and make bigger impacts and I think that the key thing that I would say to to listeners is proactively engage and cuz it’s going to impact upon all of us take cars out of the city center to put more space there for parks for children

For all the things you know us as humans we hold year um and give them the priority as opposed to occur hello and welcome to season 2 of conversations on planet which I’ve been leading a series of conversations with experts from around the world exploring the biggest challenge of our time climate change Yeah so thank you so much for inviting us in here it’s you know fantastic wonderful building and it’s great to be back on campus again just realized it was 24 years since I’ve graduated from here good grief it’s far too long to come back but you’re more than welcome

Back thank you very much so you’re a professor of Transport here at at Trinity and we’re here to dig into the puzzle of decarbonizing the the transport system so let’s let’s talk about climate let’s talk about climate probably see it getting darker outside because this conversation could take a

While that’s fair your your PhD is in engineering it is yes y um when people think about um Engineers more think uh more kind of you know micro like your building bridges and your your building cars as opposed to to Transport Systems um how did you get into the the more

Kind of the bigger picture stuff tell us a little bit about the work you do well I suppose the bigger picture stuff kind of um happened during my PhD where I was looking at public transport systems how to make them more efficient and then and since then I’ve the majority of what I

Teach and what I research is on large scale cities how we decarbonize them how we make them more sustainable more livable more cleaner air healthier all of these types of things um so I use large data sources to try improve different hypotheses um around changing the systems um and it’s great because I

Get to play with lots of data uh look at new public transport systems which which is all very interesting and being able to do that then enables me need to you know spread that love of what I do to the students that are here in this building uh also PhD students and then

I’ve been successful in funding as well to to be able to kind of push forward the science in the area great and you also have um another qualification in economics yes right yeah um how do they how do the the kind of PhD in engineering and the economics fit

Together in the work you do the thing about transportation is it’s massively interdisciplinary um uh I work with people in here in engineering economists geographers psychologists um people in computer science um historians everybody you know because transports all pervasive like you know what’s around us

All the time and the thing about it is to reach our climate goals in transport is it’s going to be really difficult first of all but there’s not one discipline that has the answer if we had the answer we wouldn’t be staring at the the abyss that we’re currently staring

At in terms of Transport emissions so one last kind of personal question um how do you get about can tell us about your own personal transport system so today it was the the the tra I got the Lewis um in here today um I generally

Get the Lewis when I’m coming in here to work uh I have an electric car at home um I live in a terorist house um which means that I can’t charge the car there so that comes up with difficulties but the I do use the car I’ve got three dogs

Um it’s they’re not welcome on the L um uh there’s very few bikes that would bring them on so it it’s mainly the the Lewis and the car would be how I would get around okay perfect so um we’re going to talk about going to your big

Big policy is we going to talk about policy going to talk about atomous Vehicles electric vehicles uh but to start with h put it all into context so how big an issue are transport emissions so in Ireland we’re about 20% of our overall um emissions come from transport um other countries it’s it’s

It’s considerably higher in France they they’ve got higher um levels of emissions from transport but in Ireland it’s 20% and it’s been kind of stable at that for for quite some time um so there’s that 20% chunk but there’s also the fact that in Ireland recent data

Shows that 69% of all trips are made by a private car and that was 2022 data data from the the same sample in 2011 uh sorry 2012 showed that it was 70% so in a decade we’ve reduced the mode share of car by 1% to 2030 the kind of things that we

Need to do in order to get to a 50% reduction in in emissions are massive um by that deadline we won’t be we won’t have tunneling machines under Trinity building the Metro we won’t have you know Light Rail um um in operation um so it’s mainly going to be bus so we kind

Of have to decarbonize our current system by 50% by the end of the decade without you know new shiny big public transport options and government has a number of ways in which they’re set out to do that um one of them is bi electrifying pretty much everything um and one of the big

Targets one that I I don’t really sit on the fence on is um a million electric vehicles by the end of the decade and um how do academics break down the transport sector and how and why is it important to be kind of getting into the granularity of the different types so in

The the big multimodal models that I would use we look at how people would travel by different modes and what persuades them to do use different modes of Transport all of that typee of thing um um in terms of the granularity then people tend to be on a couple of sides

Of it one is that they’re doing better planning so they’re doing better transport modeling better land use planning um better planning for well-being in neighborhoods and all of that type of thing they tend to be on the kind of either the shift side which is trying to get people to use more

Sustainable modes of Transport um and that’s using psychology um behavioral economics um just providing better public transport options and cycling and walking and then the last one is the improved side um and that’s generally Electrify as many cars as we possibly can trucks hydrogen um biodiesel all

Those types of things so it’s those are the three kind of Pies in which people tend to sit in when it comes to uh comes to Transportation um all of them together will get the solution there is no Silver Bullet um across any of the

Three of them so that makes it makes it difficult but all of them need to be looked at at the same time and at the same Pace okay and uh I know you’re a specialist in in kind of you know trans transport particularly kind of roads and

Um trans transport in Ireland um but could you put in the context of overall trans Transportation emissions including uh Aviation shipping um so I suppose the work that I do doesn’t really look at Aviation or doesn’t really look at Maritime shipping um uh currently Irish government policy

Is that they’re outside of the the the carbon budgets that we L have I know when they are taken into account and when Ireland does its emissions um accounting essentially and if you do take into account Aviation we get lumbered with a very big Airline um and

Then that impacts upon um our overall emissions um in terms of Aviation um it’s not something that I’ve done a hell of a lot of research on um but there are people across the campus here in Trinity that are looking at ways of making it more sustainable um and making it you

Know greener um worries about greenwashing in some cases that might happen in that and uh how the industry is going to adapt um perhaps the demand is too high um and that’s one of the things that that that that maybe is in the aviation sector I I’d heard there

Recently that the number of passengers allowed to go through the airport and it’s what just mid- October now um that we’re already almost near the annual amount so there’s huge demand it’s a latent demand from Co obviously people want to get moving around again um but we do need research efforts in that

Space to try and make it more sustainable because we are a globally interconnected planet and we need to be able to move around more sustainably for sure okay and um if we’re purpose of the conversation try to understand how the sector can can evolve how how it can

Transform but to do that we need to understand um where the holding all things other things equal you know basis would be if if we make no additional policy changes um what what is our trajectory so if we do do nothing um uh our emissions this year in in Ireland

Grew by 6% so if we do nothing everything stays as it is it will continue to increase our populations are increasing right across the planet if we do nothing that’s what’s going to happen and it’s going to increase um and it is it’s going to be really difficult to

Bring down um and I suppose where we’re sitting now in 2023 we’ve done nothing for decades and now it’s really difficult to change and we’re asking for a lifetime of change in seven years um which is going to be divisive and we’ve seen that recently in the UK how

Divisive it can be it’s it’s it’s it’s a massively difficult challenge not only in transport all the other sectors as well it will be very difficult and in transports itself in the last seven years we have done some stuff at least for two of those years there was a a

Massive natural experiment where transport system just got shut down what what what kind of lessons have you you learned from co uh what have we learned from Co I think we’ve learned a lot of good things um research that we I’ve LED here in Trinity we’ve looked at um the

Emissions that have been saved by people working from home uh we looked at changes in Behavior more flexible working people spreading the their work week working on different days of the week um and that all helps see the thing is with the transport system we plan for

A a morning Peak which is when the traffic is at its worst and then an evening Peak um but if we can spread those Peaks we can you know deal with the the demand that that happens and that’s what I suppose spreading people’s working weeks has been able to

Do um there’s still a large majority of people that work from home I work from home a number of days a week and other people across the campus do the same I think what the important thing now to try and understand is is that really reducing emissions um are the work trips

The commutes what’s happening there work that we did in a national survey showed that yes people wanted to continue to work from home and what they were going to start to do then was move away from the cities because we have a transport crisis and a housing crisis um so they

Were moving further away from the cities so they were swapping out their maybe 5 6 km commute for maybe a 20 30 km commute so the longer commute happening one or two days a week so sprawl and all of the other things are starting to

Happen because of it so it’s one of the unended consequences I think of this um that we’re starting to see and not just in Ireland and other countries across the world they’re seeing that kind of migration away from the cities um San Francisco is a great case in point where

The the price of properties have gone up through the roof and um working from home has meant that it’s hollowed at the city center um so those are the kind of the negative impacts um that we’ve seen But even during the height of the the pandemic um the emissions from transport

In Ireland didn’t fall by much because you know Freight was still happening people were still moving around um it was just the commute that was gone and the commu is probably only about 20 to 25% of all the trips we make so it’s again be aware of silver bullets um that

Also brings up a kind of a the The Wider question of like climate’s only one part of the the transports picture um there’s various other uh demographic and even even kind of biodiversity issues involved with with the urban Sproul could you talk a little bit about be the

Importance of Transport Beyond this mere climate but within a sustainability sphere sure of course if if if climate lets Park that to the side and assume that you know a pending apocalypse isn’t going to happen um we think about transport we think transport regardless if it’s an electric car a hydrogen car

Petrol diesel Fred Flintstone’s car um they all take up space and the space that they take up cause congestion um and that’s one of the negative economic impacts that people are are spending a lot of time in their their their vehicles and that has a negative economic impact so that’s one of them

The congestion side alone so that’s one of the reasons why we should be building all the public transport we possibly can um because our cities don’t get any bigger um our cars do but our cities don’t the other one is air quality um that you know our cities right across the world

And there was Recent research done here in Ireland that shows we breach a lot of the World Health Organization levels for particulate matter for for Knox all of these different values and then that is having a health impact upon people um so that’s another reason and if from my

Perspective I think that’s probably the best reason because to to try and improve the transport sector because people understand climate change is happening um it’s so big and it’s so it puts people under a lot of stress I think um it’s so big that they can’t

Comprehend it and they don’t know how to really do something about it but if you paint the picture around health and wellbeing and all the kind of things I was just talking about people go yeah I want cleaner air I want you know more space I want to be safer on my roads

There’s good public transport I will use it um so I think that’s the argument to start to have and I so talking yesterday to people from Carlo um uh County Council and they were talking about a new bus service that they had they’d never had a town bus service before and

They were getting over 1,500 passengers a day on this bus service so it was if you give people good Alternatives they will take them um and then on top of all of that then you’ve got the climates um the climate and emissions and and how we

Tackle that um but they’re all kind of that’s why I said at the start it’s not just Engineers or economists it’s everybody to make whole system work much better for sure and it’s quite easy for us to be sitting in that like du City Center here and be very kind of focused

In on um the issues that are involved around like really congestion and pollu pollution D but there’s very different issues if you get out of the you know the major urban populations you talk a little bit about the kind of urban R rural divide and there there there is a

Massive Urban rural divide in Ireland when it comes to transport and I’ve heard people recently said that oh you shouldn’t frame it as that but like you can’t not um in Dublin 98% of people are within a 15minute walk of a shop and then when you go to rural Ireland that’s

About 38% of people so there is a divide um the other thing about the Divide is is that you know we are providing lots more public transport into the inter rural parts of Ireland there’s certain parts of of rural Ireland that it will never be viable to provide a bus service

Three bus services an hour because there’s so few people there and those are the places that from from my perspective that’s where we should be pushing electric vehicles shared Vehicles as much as possible they’re the the the best alternative whereas in a city here where we are in Dublin pushing

Electric vehicles when you know if you listen closely you can probably hear the Lewis going in the background or the dart um why would we be putting all our eggs in you know the cities and that’s what the data shows um the majority of electric vehicles are in Dublin or

They’re in Cork mhm yeah and a bus that’s used for three or four people is not going to be saving you anything on emissions it’ll be be doing more hand than good surely exactly and there are more likely to be diesel buses and yeah they’re they’re going to be going

Against what we need to do um those buses obviously hopefully will be Electric in the future um but again that’s slow we have um there’s a great example in Athlon where there’s a fully um electric bus fleet in in in that town now we have about 20 Athlon in Ireland

And that needs to be everywhere okay so um this you great background great great context can it paint us a picture of what a sustainable future fairly low transport uh system in Ireland might look like I suppose in the cities um say here in Dublin um it would be that we would

Deliver all the Light Rail and Metro projects that would that that we’re hoping to do um it would be that the car there may not be a congestion charge but there would be so little space for the car to move around it would happen by proxy um and that there would be much

More space for people and cyclists and all of that type of thing would happen in the city city would be cleaner um we would put more space um for for Greening our city our City’s going to get warmer this was the coldest summer we’re ever going to experience in our lifetimes um

So we need more space for green that’s what it’ll probably look like in the urban areas and the same in Cork and Waterford and lii and gway more you know overr provide public transport is what I think you know in Cork there’s a debate whether or not would is there enough

People over provide we overr provide in roads so let’s do the same for public transport in rural Ireland um it’s a lot more difficult um almost the same amount of people that live in the greater duin area live in rural Ireland um so how we provide Mobility for them is going to be

Difficult um I think electric cars will do a lot of the heavy lifting there and then where possible shared electric cars or using using technology to connect people we talk a lot about smart cities and they’re great um and sensors and all the rest that’s fantastic I think technology

May have a bigger role to play in rural Ireland when we’re connecting people with scarce resources specifically around electric cars and given how expensive they are and the price of them aren’t coming down um from what I can see so we’re talking about mainly so far we talked mainly about kind of Supply

Sid uh changes here where you’re providing more more options provid providing more transport um that’s one half a very important half of the equation what’s the other half is theand side how do we use kind of carrots and sticks and push push and PS to change the the

Habits and habits that have built up over our lifetime and to put it in context about how difficult I think it is is that people choose where they work and where they live probably two or three times in their their lifetime I know the majority of people I’d say and

That commute and they’re stuck into wherever they are based upon where they live versus where they work um then in terms of the sticks they’re they’re obvious um look at London it’s a congestion charge or an ultra low emission Zone those are the types of

Things that we need to look at um there was work done recently that showed um they looked at free public transport and government modeled it to see what would happen happen if it was free it turned out that people wouldn’t use it even if it was free um that it wasn’t good

Enough yet it’s going to be very difficult to get people away from their cars um because they’re they’re so much more efficient than um in terms of time um than than using public transport walking or cycling and that’s where sticks will have to come in um there’s a

Lot of debate about how good public transport needs to be first before you do that we could debate that for decades I’m pretty sure in London before the congestion charge came in people said public transport’s not good enough and it was brought in it changed that city

Um I think that as well like if you look at say Paris again you know look at the the power the directly elected mayor has had there and she’s completely changed that City too so there will need to be what may seem like Draconian measures in some cases when the transports good

Transports put in place to get people away from from from their cards MH yeah I know we agree I think with uh was there at the time of the in London at the time of the congested being brought in there was practically riots in the streets before it happened within a

Month it was it was just it was normalized and everybody’s accepted and everybody accepted this is actually much better it’s a much better system we can move around we can get around quicker on our on our buses or public transport is is was was up to up to task it was

Exactly and the same thing happened in Stockholm they elect they had a vote on it let’s tral it for six months they did it it worked they voted again they kept it yeah now we’ve recently seen the uh UL love um debacle in London where uh the mayor of

London tried to bring in uh you know has brought in that like low emission Zone but ended up uh take paying a political price for it personally and also his his party um and it’s also had a fair unfortunate knock on effects into all sorts of other other policy areas but uh

It does raise the question of the of the the inequalities of how a a charge like that does affect the people who are least able to afford it at least that that’s the argument that was made so what do you think of that and there is there’s an inequality there it is the

Older vehicles that are being charged now for going into London so obviously if you have more money you buy a new van or buy a new car whatever it is and then you could avoid that charge um I know that there were grants put out as part

Of ulz in London to to specifically Target those types of people that need this the support more of that needs to be done um I think it needs to be sold better as well when you look at the figures in London was it petrol cars that were built after

Before 2010 those were the ones that weren’t allowed in uh without a charge and there’s very few of those the same with the diesel cars so it’s the communications of the policies I think are really really important um and like you’re going to break eggs when you’re doing this um there’s no way

That you can’t um but I think as much debate you know healthy debate that we have around it also building on consensus um and discussion I think all of those are vital um and we need to do those quickly um I was asked recently in another interview someone asked me you

Know what do we do really well in Ireland in transport and uh my quip us you know we write reports we write lots of reports you could probably you know pave the way of Metro to from here to the airport with reports about how we’re

Going to do it um we need to build consensus but we also need to build um and and build quickly yeah and that’s actually lead us to really interest point which is um a lot of the discussion is about it’s it’s on the negative side it’s by taking something

Away well instead why don’t we ever talk about the the benefits like as I was just mentioning in London life is better there with a congested Church H like life is better without the pollution like if you can you can breathe fresher air if you can like have a better better

Transport system how do we get the narrative from the the taking away of our freedom to a no actually here’s all the benefits and actually there’s there there are additional freedom attached to not having occur yeah I I I agree I think we need to as I said I don’t think

We’ll win the climate debate by saying you know talking about CO2 and methane and all those other types of things I think we do it by showing people that it’s going to be better um the issue is it’s the two Polar Opposites that get all the air time in

These debates um and that results in stagnation and and and nothing happening um but we can do it better we can lead by example I think we should be piloting things more I think we should be going look um say for example in Dublin if I

Were asked what I would do in the morning it wouldn’t be build Metro hopefully that’s going to happen it would be build one of the bus connects corridors show the people what it’s going to look like every part of the city then will get on board every part

Of the country will get on board when you demonstrate something that’s positive then people will want it um another example would be the Bike Share schemes when bike shares came into Dublin the DU bikes everybody this is not going to work this is going to be an absolute disaster they’re going to end

Up in the liy nothing could be further from the truth it’s one of the most successful schemes in the world they’re in almost every they’re in all every Irish City and town they’re all looking at these things um so it is by piloting um um certain aspects there’s certain

Big things that you can’t pilot you can’t pilot the Metro we can’t see how it would work for a few days and then get rid of it we just need to build it um it is very expensive um it’s a massively expensive project right now um

It’s only going to get more expensive um is is the way to look at it but I do think by bringing people you can bring people with you by telling them better stories about what can happen and learning from International experience as well um that’s a key way of been able

To say well look I was at a conference where there was um the she was the minister for transport infrastructure in in uh Brussels and she was telling us about the the the journey that City went on to take cars out of the city center to put

More space there for parks for children for all the things you know us as humans we hold here um and give them the priority as opposed to occur and those types of stories I think are very um very powerful and I think if you also Target people’s emotions around

Them and Target people’s um you know the the well-being of everybody everybody you know we saw during Co everybody pulled together and it’s we’re in one of those moments again um where we all need to pull together for this greater good and it is by demonstration uh and and

And storytelling I I think is one of the most powerful ways in which we can do it yeah yeah yeah you mentioned earlier on um that cars would naturally leave cities because congestion would be bad now that to me seems like well if cars leave cities because congestion is bad

It just leaves more space for cars so the cars come back is that is that one of those um you know rebound effects it would be a rebound effect um I think you occupy that space as soon as you possibly can once the cars start

To to move away I think say in Dublin there’s a couple of routes that are really important and there will are now more or less fully public transport and walking and cycling um and it’s very difficult to get through the city with a car now so it just becomes a place that

You just don’t want to be in a car and I suppose that’s what’s happening at some point we probably will need a congestion charge um you know in between the canals transport’s quite good and Emissions aren’t as bad it’s outside of the canals to the M50 that’s where lots of emissions happen

Um and how we tackle that we won’t be able to tackle that without a stake okay fair enough and could you now that we’re on the subject could you explain the concept of the rebound effect and how it results in awful in often um unended or unintuitive Consequences you you

Mentioned it there about you know if you free up space then other people will go well actually now it’s quicker to go buy car I’ll do that um and you see that happening so within transport modeling we would see that happening we we assume people take the modes of Transport by

The the shortest time possible the models also assum people are rational which is a big assumption um um but then if the travel time becomes less and people kind of change between routes then they will go to the one that um has the uh the the shortest path the

Shortest path then could be because of a congestion charge because of because of driving um or because you’re saving time um could could be because of driving but then the income effect is that those people will tend to be the people that are more um that have higher incomes

That will’ll be able to pay for these these these types of charges we’re talking about kind of cycling and trying to encourage people to be doing kind of more positive um healthy lifestyle now that’s cycling has got a very particular in irelands particularly um has got a very without wanting to overuse a

Particular but a very particular um type of person type of person who doesn’t yeah yeah yeah yeah like the mamal the middle-aged man and like tends to be a bit of a bit of a stereotype how do we build a cycling system cycling Network that is more inclusive H that’s more

Because I was in Copenhagen recently and everybody cycled everybody it’s in Amsterdam there SP spend some time in AB few years back everybody Cycles entirely inclusive entirely different mentality about it than than there is here it didn’t happen overnight that’s the thing and it it it happened through education

It happened through engineering it happened through enforcement um we can’t get to Amsterdam levels or Copenhagen levels of cycling overnight um it needs to be BR it needs to be educated we need to be working with our kids we need to be able to showing them the places are

Safe to cycle allowing the parents to feel confident that their kids are safe while they’re out cycling that they’re not um they’re not stuck behind a diesel bus or a diesel truck inhaling lots of you know very bad things for them um all of those kind of things need to happen

It’s it’s it’s great to look at Copenhagen and and and Amsterdam but like en cycling in Dublin is increasing it’s increasing slowly but um recently someone said to me that you know Dublin is the the Amsterdam of pedestrians so there’s about 20 30% of people all their

Trips are taken by foot um so that’s another thing that that that that we definitely do very well and not only in Dublin all of our cities there’s high levels of pedestrians um the cycling one is going to take time um but and it’s not again it’s not the

Silver Bullet that we think it is we’ve done research on it to show that if we had Amsterdam levels of cycling in Dublin the emission savings they’re not massive um what tends to happen is that people will leave public transport and go to the bike um when cycling gets

Worse they leave the bike and go to public transport it’s the people in the cars and it’s how you get to them is is the key thing the 30% of other modes that are used in the country they tend to fluctuate between public transport walking and cycling and

The car tends to stay pretty steady where it is very good yeah so yeah I think we’ve talked about things on two EX streams um but maybe could you give an example of what you think would be the best kind of you know bang for your buck one Pol policy change change you

Could make and then maybe the on the opposite end the one that might you might think would be overly emphasized as a solution um so the one the one policy the buying for your book is and it’s going to be boring it is bus transport for this country by

Assuming a 2030 timeline that’s what that’s what we require that what the investment is is needed in um there’s I think 11 routs currently under consideration by on board Penola and they’ve been there quite some time I think well maybe the one quick win would be to expedite everything that’s in a b

Plol and get things happening a lot quicker um that could be the quick win um but I do think bus services and better bus services I I think are are fantastic there’s an example in Belfast of the glider um which is a a bus that looks like a tram I think that could

Have a lot of impact great pilot bring it to a city um I I think that could have a lot of impact um and the other question was what is the yeah what is is overemphasized like what what’s better on paper than than in reality what’s better on paper than reality well like

Electric cars will reduce our emissions substantially and there’s no question about that um they do nothing to change the transport system an electric car will still delay a bus electric car you know if it’s an an accident has equally likely probability of hurting somebody causing a fatality it’s it causes the

Same amount of congestion um we put far too much effort we put we’re putting far too much in that one basket in this country about and it’s not about I know it’s 58% of all of our emissions that we have our emissions plan 58% of the reduction it’s going to come from

Electric cars um I know a lot of people think that we will get to this MO million figure I really don’t see how we’re going to do it without creating more cars um on average we sell about 100,000 cars in this country a year I looked at the stats this morning so far

In October we’ve sold 70,000 SUVs in this country um and then there’s all of the other cars that we’re continuing to sell um cars don’t solve they solve an immediate problem they solve an iMed yeah they solve an immediate problem electric cars um but cities and urban

Areas I think you know they’re not the solution more space to make more people together move faster is the thing to do okay and just and then to taking the buses as starts um would you see any bus as a good bus or would you prefer to be electric to be hydrogen to

Be and like what type of fuels would you would you kind of champion if that was um obviously electric buses are are the best but um again back to all the reports we write and Perfection being the enemy of the good um any bus is better than you know 10 20 cars rattling

Around um ideally they would be electric um and there are a number of electric buses here now in Dublin there’s plans for the all in all the regional cities um that helps with the climate but to go back to an earlier point it really helps with air quality um um because these

Buses are big like big diesel buses create lots of you know toxins that go into the atmosphere and if we look at Dublin when we model emissions in Dublin we see high concentrations around all of the bus routes um and that’s just a product of bus has been operated by

Diesel interesting yeah okay um and then taking on the the the side um a very interesting what to say like so much of the policy is then focused in focus in on this one one particular tool what extra kind Nuance would you like filled into that that debate that discussion lots of ideas

Um I think that um I think from a just transition and from that perspective I think we should be targeting electric Cards into rural parts of Ireland um with much higher grants um for people that drive much longer distances um than and and use petrol and diesel cars

That’s the first point um I think we should do we need to incentivize the secondhand car market not everybody can afford an electric car um we need to incentivize that as much as as we possibly can then the other thing is we need to massively scale up our our

Charging Network um we’ve got about 3,000 charging points now across the country um Arup and other Consultants have done work to show that we probably need maybe six figures um the pace at which those are coming out is quite slow um so those would be some of the kind of things I

Would also try to I would take away or maybe penalize um the big SUVs the big electric SUVs the that are purely electric um that use way more lithium and they’re carting around higher carcass car carcasses um and using more energy because of that uh lithium is a

Finite resource um so let’s not forget that um I’d like to see more emphasis put on smaller lighter vehicles and in our cities shared smaller lighter Vehicles okay and there’s been arguments around kind of EV Grant schemes as being um increasing inequalities they do um uh I’ve got the

The research that proves it um the majority of EVS that are sold in Ireland happen in Dublin and cork um and there’s a massive correlation between income levels in areas and EV ownership uh EVS tend to be the second car that people have um uh in these

Areas so it’s the car that that makes them feel better about running around town in a vehicle and then they keep the petrol or diesel for the the longer trips um I think as well if you gave people information on the exact cost of every trip that they’re taking petrol

Electric and even for me um to say well you know that trip to the shop probably cost you €30 when you take the lifespan of of the um of the car in into account that kind of thing then would I hope would maybe get people to think about

Really do we need to own one of these vehicles and could we perhaps share vehicles um a car spends about 95% of its time parked so the carbon or the climate benefit is 5% of the time if a wind turbine was only blowing 5% of the

Time we would stop building them um and I suppose if we can sweat the asset a bit more um like we’ve just published some research on tax and they probably travel about four times as much as a regular car if they were all electric there’s a huge

Dividend in terms of climate so the things that move more give them the incentives um uh I think and in the cities make them smaller and lighter yeah I’m surprised there only four times more attacks yep that was research that we did on the national Fleet right so

That’s like 20% from 5 to 20 yeah that’s interesting okay so um the other kind of big story in U in vehicles is is is are AVS thas Vehicles you’ve done and you’ve done done a lot of a lot of work on this um what are the main kind of Trends and

Attitudes towards AVS they seem to have slipped a little bit off the headlines recently they have um perhaps for a few reasons yeah I I have done research on them uh before I I don’t have any active projects on them at the moment um impr points yeah exactly um and I

Suppose we did modeling on it and we modeled the M50 to show you know what are the benefit of autonomous vehicles we’re told that they are safety and travel time and all of these other kind of wonderful benefits um but every car needs to be autonomous and connected to

To achieve those benefits um so that’s difficult um one of the things that a colleague of mine in Australia says about autonomous vehicles is that they’re a solution looking for a problem um and I kind of kind of feel on a maybe a human on a fundamental level if car companies were

Putting or if we were putting the resources that have been put into making it easier to drive a car into improving buses walking and cycling we would get a much higher dividend in terms of climate um I think they’re probably here to stay um there’s huge issues around them

Around the the the legal elements of it the economics who’s responsible and I’m just I I kind of scratch my head is to wonder why are we talking about all of this about making it easier to drive when you know the reason we are where we are is because of

All the cars we have um and it’s the same with electric cars why would we why are we we have a chance now to swap out you know one technology for another and we’re not really improving um it’s electric it’s cleaner but the fundamentals of it are the same um and

We’ll still have congestion and all those other things and I think the same with autonomous vehicles there’s elements of autonomous vehicles some of them not the high level you know no steering wheel pods but making car safer um uh with all these sensors that’s great stuff cuz we do need we have a

Safety problem in this country um and the there it’s predicted that this year will be the worst year in 15 in terms of Road debts so we do need to have better Technologies in our cars but fully autonomous go in lie down drive around put your kids in it send them to school

I’m not sure um that’s where we want to be basing a lot of our of our of our research and our efforts it would certainly improve the ization problem it would it would you could have much fewer cars and that has been modeled um but it’s

Still I I still don’t think you’d be able to move the volume of people in big cities um uh that is required perhaps in in in in rural parts of the world it could happen um I do think that the autonomous um buses that they’ve been traving in China and there’s a trial

Happening I think in Perth in Australia um where there are guided buses that are fully autonomous and there’s on Route charging for these electric buses that’s the type of autonomy I like to see and that type of technology I think is fantastic and the quicker we can expel

Like that the better but if we have let’s say that we do have all of these electric cars and people will then you know if you’re not driving you’re not concentrating people will accept a longer commute and then things like more urban sprawl will happen and hollowing

Out of City Center so I just think there’s lots of unintended consequences I think with them and I’m skep mhm okay fair enough okay well yet changing tax slightly um the whole issue of transports we kind of touched on a gently before well it’s very combustible it’s very and like it’s something it

Should be it should be pretty dry frankly but you end up getting you know jile joh you end up getting just up oil like you direct direct protests and like it’s pretty wonky like stuff this is not this this isn’t um you know stuff that you would think would naturally fire the

Passions but it does why why do you think it does because we do it all every day everybody does and uh and that’s why people are passionate about it that’s why people always want to talk about transport and that’s why everyone has a solution which is why you’re on the

Radio so which is why I’m in the media a bit um and uh and and there are lots of really good ideas out there but it is divisive and it is you know if somebody says oh you shouldn’t be driving your SUV uh or you shouldn’t have a diesel car or whatever

It is you know it’s almost like a personal attack and even when I’m talking to people very high up in different parts the first thing they think about is their own commute how will this impact upon me if I were doing this how would I do it and

You get what abouty what about this what about that and like I’ve been on the radio before talking about you know removing cards from the city center and then you know you get comments from people kind of you know oh you expect everybody to walk to the maternity hospital or you

Expect you know people people with we that need need cars for wheelchair access you expect that no it’s not that and it’s not the one solution will fit all as I said Beware of the Silver Bullet um it is just so divisive and then one of the things that struck me recently

Was um we’ve done this work in Dublin to see about removing cars from the city and I think it was 40% of cars that are circulating around the city have an end point in the city the rest are just moving through and there was a politician on the north side of the city

And he started to vocalize this and he was saying why are my constituents breathing in all of your pollutants and you’re just traveling through what gives you the right to do that and that was a really really good point and it’s debates like that that are happening quite a bit and

It’s it’s the people that think that that they they need to make a trip for the one off once a year that they’re going to do it that take up a lot of the airtime and whereas like say for example in Dublin or in Cork or any the other

Cities the citizens live in the city and they are the they should be the ones that you know that have a much bigger say and um I spoke was it last year it was last summer at the with the citizens assembly here in Dublin about the directly elected Dublin mayor and I

Think that’s a fantastic idea if you look at any of the cities around the world that are doing amazing things Barcelona London Paris they’re all doing amazing things they have amazing directly elected Mayors and that means then the person that’s enacting these policies taking away parking promoting

Cycling has a mandate um for good or for bad whatever whatever mandate they have they have a mandate as opposed to somebody that was appointed through you know the the public service and it’s a civil servant and he or she doesn’t have that mandate um I think that’s one of

The things that were missing and it was disappointing there well first of all it’s disappointing limr voted for this back in 2020 and they still don’t have a mayor in place um but there was also pleb asites in Waterford and Cork and they rejected it um I’m hoping now that

The report report from the assembly that has gone to government will result in Dublin doing something on it because I think it could be transformational for for the city and I don’t necessarily think that person should have authority over building Metro and all of these other big projects um the could because

Or the bus systems because there would be duplication the mayor will be the Mayor of Dublin but the bus Network impacts upon the whole region I think the mayor could use the current Powers the council have better in terms of Road space cycling space promoting green

Spaces within the city I think the Amica could do use those Powers with a mandate much better as you can see in in in Paris is is a fantastic example of the moment mhm yeah I know know the brilliant idea was was yeah surprised that um a city would reject that type of

Autonomy it seems to be a natural thing for the people in the city to put hand and say yes we would like to be electron officials it was surprising especially for cork um I’m from wford originally um uh I was surprised um and even the vote

In liy was marginal that that that it got passed by what were the arguments against that of oh the arguments against were you know they weren’t sure what powers they were going to get um and that it would be that it would be just tokenistic those were kind of some of

The arguments against it um uh but thankfully as I said lica got through but again October 23 we don’t have um uh a directly elected Mar I think it is going to happen in the local elections in May next year um but those types of delays and

Lags we’re we’re we’re so past that right now um we need to get these things happening much quicker absolutely and how’s the how are the conversations within kind of academic circles about the the polarization and politicalization of these these issues um I I suppose there’s a grouping

Here within Trinity um and from right across the campus and their great sounding board and we talk all of the time um and I think we kind of off theay from being really scared um in terms of what we see happening to being very optimistic in some cases

Um it oscillates I think there’s a lot of people that support each other through kind of like if you’re being going out there banging the table that you start to support people that are doing that or you send an email if you know if a colleague has been on the

Radio and they’re saying something what whether it’s about climate or whatever you send them you know something positive and say Well done that was brilliant can we me for coffee that typee of thing um there is a fear that you know kind of some of the ideas around transport around other areas of

Climate that they have become some some polarized and some of the narratives even around the 15-minute City some of the narratives that are creeping in there that it’s the UN trying to enclose you within a 15minute of your house those types of things are scary and I suppose

That’s why us as academics we have a job to educate people we have a job to to show the research to show the benefits and to to communicate that better as well and to to get out there um and and do that um we’re staring at the abyss as

I said earlier and uh and not to be so negative but you know it’s what did you do where were you and all of this was happening kind of conversation I suppose at the moment and we need to do everything and I was asked again recently um sorry it was

Back earlier in the year someone said to me uh what do we need to do in transport and I quoted the the movie that won the best picture of the Oscars everything everywhere all at once is what we need to do mhm yeah but agree and and that’s

The same in so many areas of the whole the whole climate and biodiversity crisis we’re going through right now um but kind of broadening it out a little bit to you know somewhere to everywhere somewhere else um you have um done some research with colleagues in Brazil yes

Yep um how has that research informed your attitudes and in relation to decarbonization of Transport generally um that was a fantastic piece of research that we did in rural um um Brazil and one of the first things I found out was that the problems that we

Have in Ireland in terms of how the the mechanisms of getting things working and transport were the same um as they were in Brazil and the PHD student that worked on it at Rulo he was I was from that part of Brazil um the key thing I

Suppose that it that it showed me was that was data is so important um when it comes to informing policy uh I say to my students if you don’t count it it doesn’t count um so if you’re building something doing something different energy transport water whatever it is

You need to be able to prove what you did was was beneficial um and we tried to do that in this project in Brazil and like basic things that we didn’t have information on one was where people lived and we were like right okay we

Have to come up with a way of figuring out how where people live and then we found out or we knew that in that part of Brazil there was a huge um uh irrigation and water scheme where there were Water Systems put into every part

Of Brazil of that part of Brazil and if there was a water system there then we assumed there was houses there and there was people there so we were able to link the two prove it um by using um geospatial analysis and then show where the populations were and then having

That data then empowered us to be able to go right how far away is somebody living in that part of Brazil from education work and and Healthcare um and we looked at what happened before and after a a Motorway was put in to see what the impacts were on literacy on on

Infant mortality all of these kind of things um and it was it was a really rewarding project um and the the PHD student of mine that worked there is is back in Brazil he’s using that work it was fed into the the ministry that was in charge of transport

To come up with better ways of of of planning for transport uh in in Brazil and also other countries in the global South fantastic and any insights from that that you’ve you’ve taken back into your work here on campus um the work that we will bring back here I I suppose

There have been you know one like I teach a module on it or I teach classes on what we learn learned from from that um there were certain things I suppose the before and after studies the kind of technical GIS analysis that we did that the that kind of stuff has definitely

Informs some of my teaching and more of my research and we’ve applied it to different parts of of Ireland as well and the same author that was on that research in Brazil was on an author was authored on work that I did here in Ireland on Rural transport and you could

See the the similarities between the two so it’s we definitely learn from each other mhm okay excellent so if we could just ask one last question for you know just to to wrap up um normally ask for a little bit of advice at the end and in

This uh in this case could you give one piece of advice to kind of listeners out there what’s the one thing that they can do that can make the most impact I suppose across all of climate is no no just say in across transport across transport I suppose the one thing

That they could do is I suppose to I suppose considered the trips that that are been made um if transport policies are been put in front of somebody that they listen and they listen to see look what are the benefits what are the the the negative impacts of

It for you because that’s the first person that that that that’s going to uh be impacted upon by it and engage engage um you know proactively um in transport policy development um and I suppose the other thing is that we’re doing this for a greater good and we’re trying to make

All of these changes to make our cities and everything else better and more clean uh more healthy all of these types of things but it’s also the it’s I suppose it’s the the the global climate crisis that we’re in at the moment has never been more acute and

We’ve seen that even this week in Ireland flooding everywhere little impacts all start to snowball and make bigger impacts and I think the the key thing that I would say to to listeners is to to listen engage and proactively engage and because it’s going impact upon all of

Us okay thank you very much that was brilliant thank you thank you Cheers