Online Webinar: Travel Behaviour Reconsidered in an Era of Decarbonisation

Join the Transport Planning Society in this lunchtime webinar to hear David Metz speak about his latest book, Travel Behaviour Reconsidered in an Era of Decarbonisation.

The transport system is central to our lives as our means to travel, but also has major impact on our environment. This has become most salient in recent years through its contribution to climate change. However, this perspective has only had a minor impact on the conventional economic analysis and modelling of transport investments, creating a dissonance between the traditional objectives of investment and the strategic need to reduce carbon emissions to Net Zero by 2050.

Travel Behaviour Reconsidered in an Era of Decarbonisation argues that our transport networks are mature, and the objective should be to improve operational efficiency. Over the past half century, large public expenditures in roads and railways were justified by an analytic approach to the benefits of investment, primarily the value of the time saved through faster travel, to both business and non-business users of the networks. However, average travel time has not changed over this period. People have taken the benefit of faster travel as better access to people, places, activities and services, with the ensuing enhanced opportunities and choices. David’s book argues that the basis of orthodox transport economic analysis has been misconceived and a fresh perspective on economic analysis is now needed.

This is available to download without charge at https://uclpress.co.uk/book/travel-behaviour-reconsidered-in-an-era-of-decarbonisation/

Speaker Profile

David Metz is an honorary professor in the Centre for Transport Studies, University College London, where his research focuses on how demographic, behavioural and technological factors influence travel demand, and how this demand is met. He trained in biochemistry and biophysics, and subsequently was a biomedical researcher. He then became a senior civil servant in a number of UK government departments, both as policy advisor and scientist, including five years as Chief Scientist at the Department of Transport. Subsequently he was active in the area of ageing research, before reverting to the analysis of travel and transport.

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