ROUNDTABLE Understanding vehicle usage, speaking with others, and incentivising behaviour change is the best way to make the adoption of zero-emission vehicles a success, found delegates at a recent GreenFleet roundtable on 7 March at Birmingham’s Edgbaston Cricket Ground During GreenFleet’s recent roundtable on the challenges of adopting low emission vehicles, we identified that there is no single silver bullet to improving air quality and to getting acceptance of zero emission vehicles. The roundtable, held on 7 March at Birmingham’s Edgbaston Cricket Ground, was attended by businesses, local authorities, suppliers of vehicles and infrastructure. The discussion explored the barriers to EV adoption and how to overcome them, what EVs can do for a business, and how to make the leap in reality. For many, changing to an electric vehicle still requires a leap of faith – a leap some have yet to wrestle with – despite mounting pressure from central and local government. The day kicked off by looking at the rapidly changing political and regulatory
frameworks that require action on transport emissions. Air quality is getting worse with increased levels of nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter causing ever increasing respiratory problems. Change will happen because government has mandated it with the introduction of clean air zones and the prospect of massive fines for failing to hit agreed air quality targets. The roundtable audience heard from Chris Lane, operations manager with the University of Birmingham about the changes coming to the local area and how the local authority is driving down emissions seeking Euro six compliance for taxis and rephasing traffic lights to reduce congestion. As Chris rightly said, “there is no single silver bullet” to improving air quality and the challenge is to improve air quality
Written by John Curtis
The challenges of adopting zero emission vehicles
GF Roundtable
With support from
for all, not just move the boundaries outwards from town centres. Essentially, we need less vehicles on our roads and those that are used need to be clean. Local authorities and transport operators have a wide range of interventions at their disposal and operators being able to “pay to pollute”, through congestion charging and high taxation, only works if the costs outweigh the benefit. Chris went on to discuss the need to remove people from their vehicles and the requirement for better public transport to entice them from behind the wheel. When asked if Birmingham, as one of our major cities, has sufficient efficiently run public transport he said, as a non driver and therefore heavy user of public transport, “not yet”. E
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