Mobility Matters Daily #141 - Peak car and people's views on the future

With some visuals on bikes in London

Aug 26, 2021

Good day friend.

I’m late, I’m late, I’m late. To the news.

James

Peak Car personifies how transport is complex

Has the world passed peak car? According to Tom Standage, it has. The core of his thesis is that the total number of cars produced has declined, with the peak of car production being 79 million vehicles globally in 2017. He also points to evidence that states the number of new vehicles has risen at a rate that is slower than the rate of population increase. As well as the old stats about car ownership declining.

This got me interested. Is this happening in the UK, and if so where? Whilst I crunch the numbers a bit, just some thoughts. It depends on how the data is presented, how you define peak car, and the context in which you are discussing it. Believe it or not, while there is consensus that something is happening, we are not sure what is driving it. Data can be cut in many ways. Road traffic levels, for example, have generally increased, while driving licence holding among the young has also dropped as a percentage and in total. All the while, the population has increased.

A lazy logical trap here is to say that this means that middle aged and the elderly are driving more. Rule of deduction and all that. But this is not necessarily the case. Think things through logically, but I urge you to be wary where evidence does not exist for your logical conclusion. People, and by extension transport, are complex.

Deliberative research

The Department for Transport has published some interesting research into people’s views on new mobility services. This research has taken a deliberative approach, and many of the results are not surprising. But I found this nugget interesting…

People were often not making active, conscious transport decisions but rather defaulting to known options based on habit, convenience, comfort and cost combined. While travelling by car is preferred by most, due to both strong practical and emotional associations related to the autonomy of driving, travel decision making was also strongly influenced by a variety of demographic, attitudinal and lifestyle factors. As a result, attitudes influencing perceptions of future transport innovations were varied.

This should come as no shock, but its important in terms of how we frame discussions around future mobility. People have a variety of views influenced by a variety of factors, but their common reference point is the here and now and their travel choices here and now. This poses a twin challenge to professionals - making the future of mobility relatable to people, against ensuring we do not fall into this line of thinking ourselves.