Print: Reducing Carbon Emissions from Surface Passenger Transport?

What Policies are Effective at Reducing Carbon Emissions from Surface Passenger Transport?

This report by the UK Energy Research Centre examines the merits of a range of different policies that offer the prospect of CO2 emissions reduction from road transport. The report has the following objectives:

• Review the evidence for CO2 emission reduction potential and cost-effectiveness across policies that target car technology/choice and those that target wider travel choices
• Identify the key issues and problems associated with each policy type
• Identify whether and where policies are complementary or synergistic
• Identify evidence gaps and highlight future research needs
• Draw conclusions relevant to current UK policy

The report does not undertake new modelling or empirical research; rather it provides a thorough review of the current state of knowledge on the subject, guided by experts and in consultation with a range of stakeholders.

The project team undertook a systematic search for every report and paper related to the assessment question. Experts and stakeholders were invited to comment and contribute through an expert group. A team of expert consultants was commissioned to categorise, review and distil the evidence. This tightly specified search revealed over 500 reports and papers on the subject, each of which was categorised and assessed for relevance.

The evidence on each policy is reviewed against the following criteria:

• Potential emissions saving; in absolute and percent terms where the evidence permits.
• Key issues and problems; including reasons for effectiveness, evidence gaps, obstacles to policy implementation, interactions with other policies and potential rebound effects.
• Costs; where possible we provide evidence of costs in £/tonne carbon terms. Where this is not available in the literature we provide a discussion of what evidence does exist.

This report represents one output from this process of review, evaluation and synthesis.

The other main output is a set of detailed evidence tables which are published on the UKERC website alongside this report.

Exuctive Summary - http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/Downloads/PDF/09/0904TransportES.pdf

Full report: http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/Downloads/PDF/T/TPA_transport_final.pdf

Kind thanks to World Streets Sentinel in the UK Richard Peace for the heads-up.

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