ROAD PASSENGER TRAVEL
With regular proximity to re-charging/refuelling facilities, short-distance public transport (bus and coach) could reasonably and practicably become powered by battery, hydrogen or similar fuels.
Perhaps the great opportunity is to establish a network of high-quality and guaranteed connection feeder services into rail hubs, as an efficient and cost-effective way of connecting medium-sized towns away from the main network.
Examples can begin to be seen where integrated timetabling, ticketing and branding produce a town-to-city journey that starts with a rubber-tyred vehicle, but where the main journey is in a steel-wheeled one, sufficiently attractive and genuinely seamless to provide an alternative to the private car.
Car travel itself will change as the next generations decline the financial burden of personal ownership.
While electrification of regular and relatively short-distance road trips will be practical with small battery vehicles, acquiring an expensive vehicle with the long-range ability for infrequent journeys will cease to be common - more a hobby activity for enthusiasts.
Furthermore, the responsibility for even a short-range car will become more of a burden for the significant proportion of people without access to off-street parking and recharging facilities.
The attraction of MAAS (Mobility As A Service) will rapidly increase. Fewer people will own a vehicle that is used only a fractional percentage of the time, when one can be summoned by app (either manned or more likely autonomous) as and when needed, and similarly sent away at the end of a journey.
One consequence would be the increase in accessibility of rail stations as parking becomes unnecessary, replaced with manned or unmanned pick up and drop off.
However, the business of station parking as a revenue stream will also reduce greatly, to be replaced with useful facilities - whether parcels and packaging, retail, leisure or serviced meeting rooms, or even green space.
Long-distance road travel will become greener through electrification, but it is far from clear how it will be easy or convenient. The powertrain required will at the least be large, expensive, and time-inefficient to service.
The rented long-distance (potentially autonomous) electric car will still be attractive for family groups and those with heavy equipment or luggage, but continuing its currently dominant use by one or at most two people will ultimately depend on price and convenience compared with rail.
Therein lies rail’s opportunity and threat. If it remains difficult to access and expensive at the point of use, there will continue to be road alternatives with similar operational carbon footprints.
CLIMATE ADAPTATION
As well as changes in temperatures affecting economic sectors as diverse as agriculture and winter sports, the forecasting demonstrates increasingly extreme weather-related events (both the frequency and power of storms) over all seasons.
This challenges the standards to which new infrastructure is designed, but also has more and greater implications for the existing asset base - from housing and utilities to flood defences and transport.
It may be anticipated that a sustained effort of retrofit and upgrade to existing assets will absorb much of the funding available for managing the existing built infrastructure.
