Interchange STB Conference 2024

My first visit to the Interchange STB conference on 28th February 2024. It hit the sweet spot for me in terms of size, content and structure. I was able to lap up some great sound bites from the talks, to follow up with more juice from the speakers and, I even had time to participate in a podcast, thanks to Transport for the South East !

So here is a collection of my take-aways from the conference.

EV Infrastructure

A reminder from Shayne Reesof the pace of change, from a few years ago when a 100 charger project was huge, to today, when the same is merely a trial. Last year we hit 50,000 chargers and in 2030 we need to hit around 400,000 - 500,000 chargers.

Simon McGlone presented the TfN EVCI tool February updates including the very useful, ‘% of charging demand being met by existing infrastructure’ heatmap, a great monitoring tool for LAs and CPOs and some important intelligence for site selection and rollout planning.

The issue of peak/seasonal charging demand was raised by Hannah Shrimpton who shared that the South West sees a 25% increase in traffic in the summer months, with the latest date showing a 22% increase in EVCP demand in the SW at peak times. The STBs have been looking for ways to encourage the use of other transport modes once in the area so that they don’t have to over-cater EV charging infrastructure.

Public Sector Insights (for EVI rollout)

Local government politicians are a really important stakeholder and officers have needed to push them to be ambitious with regards to the transition to electric vehicles. “For our politicians to have confidence we need to do more work up front rather than leaving it to the market.” Vanessa Strange

Important for councils to shift their mindset away from asset based procurement for chargepoints, towards tendering for (charging) services to meet the needs of particular, defined communities.

Think about place-based solutions, because transport is nothing without the place.

Getting Edufreighted

The trends that make freight a really important, big and interesting challenge:?

• Lifestyle changes and consumer preferences dictating next day deliver, free returns and more movement of goods through move to renting versus buying are part of the reason that global freight demand is predicted to double between 2015 and 2030.
• In the UK, nine times more freight is moved by road than by rail, despite the fact that freight transport by rail on average emits 76% less carbon per tonne. Road transport likely to remain the preferred mode due to its flexibility.
• Vehicles are changing: bigger vehicles on major/strategic roads and smaller vehicles (e.g. and including cargo bikes) in urban areas.

And yet freight is the ‘forgotten child’ because of:

• Barriers between private freight operators who are reluctant to share data and the public sector blindness to freight despite the public sector's role and remit in the necessary infrastructure for freight movement.
• Whereas people vote for policies that meet their transport goals and aspirations, freight doesn’t have a vote so we in the industry need to think 'freight first'.

Decarbonising Heavy Goods Vehicles

If we [the government] don’t pick a fuel soon and go with it we’re going to miss net zero targets. Battery electric trucks are proven, there are vehicles on the market, we need to find ways to support the transition.

The Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport predicts that the Logistics sector for energy/fuel distribution would have to double to support a transition to Hydrogen.

And as a reminder of the climate imperative to act in money terms. In 1980s there were three climate events a year on average in the US that caused over $1 billion worth of damage, in 2021 alone there were 20 such events. Future of Goods Movement report

All in all some great collaborations and great work happening. However, we need to do even more and widen the net when working on solutions and strategies to decarbonising road transport to meet our goals and serve everyone.