Road Pricing and Traffic Reduction webinar
FIT held the third in its new series of webinars on 7th February, on the topic of road pricing and traffic reduction.
There is growing consensus that we will need a national system of road pricing to reduce traffic in order to meet numerous policy goals such as encouraging active travel, decarbonising transport and increasing transport infrastructure investment. Road pricing can also provide a replacement for the £35 billion revenue from fuel duty lost through the rise in sales of electric cars and zero emission vehicles (ZEVs). This webinar focused on how to make the concept of distance-based road pricing publicly and politically acceptable, and how to get politicians and political parties to adopt transport policies like road pricing that will have a measurable, significant impact on climate emissions.
In 2022, FIT’s funding focus was on traffic reduction, with a particular emphasis on road-user charging. Trustees were looking for bold, provocative and entertaining campaigns that change minds and challenge the status quo. Two of our grantees, Campaign for Better Transport and Transform Scotland, were funded specifically to focus on road pricing/traffic reduction.
Speakers:
Silviya Barrett, Director of Policy and Research, Campaign for Better Transport
Silviya is responsible for building the policy and research programme and leading project delivery at Campaign for Better Transport. Silviya was previously Research Manager at Centre for London, the capital’s dedicated think tank, where she headed up the Transport & Environment research programme. Silviya has authored a number of reports on how we can achieve the shift towards sustainable transport. Most recently, she examined the public’s views of pay-as-you-drive and reform of vehicle taxation, while at Centre for London she wrote a report on designing a fairer and smarter scheme of road user charging for the capital.
Elspeth Wray, Head of Enterprise, Transform Scotland
Elspeth leads projects with Transform’s partners on everything from researching access to bikes in Scotland to calculating the carbon savings from cross-border rail. Over the past year she’s been working with Scotland’s business community to bring them into the conversation about traffic demand management and to influence the Scottish Government’s 20% car traffic reduction target, coming up with positive recommendations for policies which cut congestion whilst supporting economic growth. Prior to joining Transform Scotland, Elspeth was in London where she worked at the Design Council to promote sustainable architecture and planning, and as an Environmental Consultant in the private sector.
Panellists:
Sue Flack
Sue is a transport and planning consultant, specialising in Workplace Parking Levy. She has considerable public sector experience but also worked in consultancy for 8 years. She was Director of Planning and Transport at Nottingham City Council from 2012 to 2016, having previously been responsible for developing the Workplace Parking Levy in Nottingham from its initial stages and before that developing employer travel plans across the city. More recently she has advised various local authorities who want to develop Workplace Parking Levy in their area including Leicester City Council. She is a trustee for the URBED Trust, a Commissioner for the North Wales Transport Commission and a Policy Advisor for Transform Scotland.
Roger Harrabin
Roger is the BBC’s energy and environment analyst, and one of their senior journalists on the environment and energy. He has broadcast on environmental issues since the 1980s and has won many awards in print, TV and radio. Aside from his speciality he has covered many major general news stories. He is an honorary Fellow at St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, a visiting fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford, an Associate Press Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and has received an honorary Doctorate of Science from Cranfield University.
Chair:
Stephen Joseph, Visiting Professor at University of Hertfordshire and Chair of the FIT Board of Trustees
Stephen Joseph is a transport policy consultant, specialising in urban and local issues and in smart transport. He was Chief Executive of Campaign for Better Transport (formerly Transport 2000) from 1988 to 2018. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Hertfordshire’s Smart Mobility Unit since December 2018, having received an honorary doctorate from the University in November 2010. At present, Stephen is a trustee and chair of the Foundation for Integrated Transport. He is a director of the Transport for New Homes project, which the Foundation established. He also chairs the Smart Transport board for Bauer Media and is an adviser to the Rail Devolution Network. He was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1996 for services to transport and the environment.