Over the last year, various parts of the national government have woken-up to the importance of the road freight industry on Carbon emissions. The SRF has responded to three separate consultation exercises:
- The DfT has been working on its ‘road to zero’ policy, which is due to be published shortly. The centre was involved in the consultation and the DfT used our ‘SRF Optimiser’ tool to help inform their analysis for the policy. We understand that a major recommendation of the document will be a voluntary industry target of 15% tailpipe carbon reduction on 2015 levels by 2025.
- The Government Office for Science (‘GO Science’) is currently engaged in a Foresight project on the Future of Mobility, which seeks to inform future policy decisions on mobility within the UK government. The Centre has been commissioned by GO Science to write a report on options for UK road freight out to 2040 and to provide a roadmap and estimation of decarbonisation levels. Dr Anna Keyes, Research Associate in the Centre, (based at Heriot-Watt university) has been seconded to GO Science for 6 months to help with the Foresight Project.
- The National Infrastructure Commission recently launched a call for evidence into the future of freight. The centre has provided a response focussing on some of the major issues including: (a) prospects for alternative fuels; (b) the need for a coherent policy on charging infrastructure for freight vehicle electrification; (c) the need for standardisation around logistics data communication; (d) the roadmap to decarbonisation of UK road freight.
The SRF is planning to take a more pro-active approach to policy issues during the next phase of its operations.
David Cebon
17/3/2018
