On 30th November Ana Basiri attended the Midlands Intelligent Mobility Conference at Loughborough University. This conference brought together industry, government and academic sectors to review the strategies, challenges and opportunities of making transport services in the UK more intelligent, adaptive, personalised, automated and environmentally friendly. The conference placed travellers and commuters at the heart of the transport system and discussed the challenges of user-centric mobility services.
Since many of our daily journeys are to or from work, the WORKANDHOME project studies how working from home can contribute to the reshaping of urban planning in the future. In this regard, Professor Margaret Bell (CBE) of Newcastle University gave an interesting talk on the impact of reducing the number of trips, particularly long journeys, on the emission of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. She explained that even the replacement of all cars with electric cars would not make it possible to hit the target that the UK has committed to by 2050, and the number of journeys needs to be reduced. From this perspective, it seems that working from home could be viewed not only as an alternative for business but also as a necessary approach for saving the environment.