Mobility Matters Daily #78 - Carbon pricing, NIMBYs, and optimism bias
More randomness from the mad world of mobility
Can market mechanisms actually reduce carbon emissions in transport?
An interesting paper on the use of “energy auctions” to sell excess energy generated to be used by electric vehicles (highlighted to me by the excellent DecarboN8) has raised the possibility of using market pricing mechanisms for low carbon transport. The results from this analysis shows that on average 21.5% more solar energy is used, and a 71.4% reduction in required grid energy. But this is theory, what about practice?
The most direct evidence we have of using emissions tradition is the aviation sector under the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. Analysis has shown that under the scheme, low cost airlines are providing 7% fewer seats, and where there is competition on routes (e.g high speed rail) there are 23% fewer seats. Furthermore, emissions trading is impacting on the routing decisions of international flights into the EU by encouraging transfers outside of EU countries. Not much to conclude upon, but interesting none-the-less.
Los Angeles has a plan to disarm the NIMBYs. Or why you should always read past the headline
An article of the same name stoked my interest recently. So, what new and exciting initiative has Los Angeles done to head off a heated planning meeting? Turns out, its rather simple. Run a design competition where the designers listen to the stories of those whom they are providing transport for, and then showcase them. It’s not disarming the NIMBYs, but it is much cleverer than that.
This builds upon principles of deep engagement, where through engaging with communities at a deeper level, this gives the opportunity for communities to engage at a level that suits them. More recent thinking is now expanding this concept of co-design to the process of policy making itself, with an excellent article by Emma Blomkamp providing some sound theoretical underpinnings for doing this. I eagerly await the first co-designed Local Transport Plan!
The changing evidence of how optimistic transport planners are about the costs of schemes
One the things transport planners in the UK are excellent at is optimism bias. We practically invented the entire practice of optimism bias in the public sector, and methods for deploying it in projects. Recently, the UK Government published research into updating the evidence behind optimism bias in transport schemes.
An interesting conclusion from a review of over 2000 schemes is that optimism bias is not flatly distributed across project development. It is much higher in the early stages of scheme development, and much, much lower than estimated in the later stages of scheme development. So, we may have much higher cost estimates in early stages of project development from now on.