Moving into the future?
The next step for mobility
Sunday 28 October, 4.00pm until 5.30pm, Lecture Theatre 2 Salon Debates

Given the opportunity, most people want to travel. Almost any measure of mobility, from car ownership to international flights, shows that we are covering more miles than our parents, and many more than our grandparents. In the past 20 years, the number of trips abroad by UK residents tripled to over 66 million. Whether it’s living further from where we work, spreading our social circle wider, or going on more adventurous holidays, we are embracing the benefits of faster, cheaper transport.

But moving around uses energy, and saving energy is the new mantra. Can we, and should we, square the new freedom to move with the desire to reduce the human footprint? Experience shows that making transport more efficient doesn’t save energy, because people simply use that efficiency to make their time and money budget go further - literally.

What mobility should we demand in the future: energy-efficient public transport to tempt more people out of their cars? Smart technology that reduces unnecessary trips through videoconferencing and internet shopping? Or simply more, faster and cheaper ways of getting about that can open up the new freedom to move to everyone on the planet?

 Speakers

Professor Dale Harrow
head of department, Vehicle Design, RCA; identified by BBC's Top Gear as eighth most important person in automotive industry
Andrew English
motoring correspondent, The Daily Telegraph
Professor Tony Ridley
professor of transport engineering, Imperial College London; senior transport advisor to the London 2012 bid
Peter Smith
director of tourism, St. Mary’s University College, Twickenham, London; co-author, Volunteer Tourism: the lifestyle politics of international development
Chair:
Dr Peter Martin
lecturer, School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, University of Manchester; Principal Investigator, engaging cogs.

 Produced by


Moving into the future?, Peter Smith

 Recommended readings

Speeding towards the future
'We've simply replaced intrepidness with anxiousness when we travel. There is a visionary project of achieving cheap, clean and plentiful energy which we need to address.'
Peter Martin, Engaging Cogs, 2006

What is the greenest way to get around?
Stopping urban 4x4's, push-bikes and bendy-buses - the answer to the transport question?
Lucy Siegle, Guardian, 30 September 2006

A car for all - or mobility for all? Part II
'Overall, the challenge is to move to a level of integration where vehicles and services work together to offer enhanced mobility to people of all ages and abilities.'
Roger Coleman and Dale Harow, uiGarden.net, 7 June 2006

Aviation and mobility
Watch Claire Fox look at an issue which has been widely discussed in recent debates on climate change and future travel around the world.
Claire Fox News, 18 Doughty Street TV, 6 August 2007

A need for speed
'In this new century we need to expand space into time more than ever, yet instead of clear-sighted debate about the use of speed to enhance our lives, the developed world has perverted its meaning.'
Andrew English, Telegraph, 1 March 2007

recommended by spiked

Put the breaks on this cult of slowness
Anna Travis, 30 May 2007

Getting us nowhere fast
Austin Williams, 27 July 2004

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