Decarbonising Transport – Transportation Group Conference 2021

The 2021 Transportation Group conference is taking place in Auckland from 9-12 May.  The theme for this year is ‘decarbonising transport’.  The timely release of the Climate Change Commission draft advice for consultation in January 2021 further supports the conference theme.  The document presents both great opportunities and challenges to us as transport professionals to do our bit.

The Abley team will be presenting on a range of topics to inspire and provide support as we embark on this journey together to decarbonise transport. Building streets for people to encourage more active travel choices for people of all ages and abilities helps to reduce our carbon emissions.

How can we create environments that encourage safer and appropriate speeds in our communities?  What should be an easy task often is not! Jeanette Ward provides a toolkit of solutions to create safer speeds in our built environments. Case studies, stories and guidance will provide you with tools you can implement in your local area to create environments where walking and cycling is the norm.

Becky Tuke has a poster presentation on the pedestrian level of service tool that Abley developed for Waka Kotahi.  Learn how to assess streets to enable prioritisation of street improvements.  Check out the poster and feel free to talk to Becky if you have any questions during the conference. Becky will also be tackling the challenges of delivering a resilient transport system.  How do we create a resilient network and ensure we are doing our best to mitigate and adapt to climate change? 

A shift in our urban street environment is the presence of electric scooters.  Jo Draper explores the results of a recent study focused on the impact of micro-mobility on other active mode users and trips.

Beyond design considerations, we need to understand the impact of transport carbon emissions.  To do so, we need to measure our outputs.  Benjamin Walch asks if Road Controlling Authorities (RCAs) should calculate emissions on their road network?  Recent work to assess carbon emissions from vehicles at a district level identified the peak period for transport-related emissions and identified measures to enable the council to meet climate change targets. 

Benjamin is also providing guidance and insights on the need for good data at an organisational level. Many organisations find engaging employees in carbon reduction activities and creating lasting behaviour change can be challenging.  The learnings from this session are applicable for people at all levels within a workplace.

The conference marks the end of Jeanette Ward‘s tenure as the Transportation Group Chair.  Her commitment to the role and passion for diversity, inclusion and progressive design has inspired positive change, in a challenging global era. Ngā mihi maioha Jeanette!

Shendi Mani from our Auckland office is the Convener for this year’s conference. Thank you to Shendi, the organising committee and Harding Consultants for your resilience and hard work to make this conference happen!  The team is looking forward to sharing knowledge to shape and lead changes to decarbonise the transport environment.