Low Carbon Urban Mobility

Image courtesy of D Iliff via the Creative Commons attribution share-alike licence

The UK Government has set ambitious targets for becoming a net zero carbon economy by 2050. This will entail substantial reform of urban infrastructure to enable the population to move towards low or no carbon forms of transport and lifestyle. Such a transformation will require a radical rethink of our cities but also provides an opportunity to ‘level up’ urban areas outside of London and attract new investment.

To research this topic, the ITC teamed with Nottingham Business School to investigate what kind of transport infrastructure investments are needed and the key issues that policy makers need to take into account. The project has been exploring different scales of urban area, comparing London, Nottingham and Durham as case study cities, and examining the types of city governance to ensure a tailor-made approach. Following a series of workshops, a report was published in early 2023 under the title: Achieving net-zero carbon transport in our cities: key issues for policy makers. The ITC is now working on disseminating the findings from the report, and the wider policy themes arising were examined at the ITC’s Discussion Webinar to launch the report.