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A Sustainable Revolution – How do we ensure our transport network is ready for Net Zero?

Will Dismorr
Graduate Digital Engineer, 4way Consulting

Will Dismorr was the winner of the ITS UK 2024/25 Early Careers Competition, for the best essay in the early careers professional category. Here, you can read his winning essay. Find out more about the competition here.

The journey towards Net Zero in UK transport isn’t just about adopting new technologies—it’s about confronting the legacy of choices made over the last half-century. Since the 1970s, Britain’s relentless focus on road expansion, fossil fuel dependency, and car-centric urban design has locked the country into energy-intensive lifestyles. To truly ensure our network is ready for Net Zero by 2050, Britain must both address today’s transport challenges and proactively anticipate the profound technological and societal disruptions likely to reshape mobility in the decades ahead.

From Prosperity to Dependency: How We Got Here

The seeds of today’s transport crisis were planted during Britain’s economic expansion of the 1960s and 1970s. During this era, the car became central to British life, reshaping the economy, urban areas, and cultural norms. Government policy strongly encouraged motorway building and suburban sprawl, symbolised most dramatically by the Beeching cuts, which axed a third of Britain’s rail network and locked communities into car dependency. Towns and cities became designed around vehicles rather than people, leading to congestion and increasingly severe pollution.

Simultaneously, the rise of affordable air travel and expansion of maritime freight facilitated unprecedented global connectivity. Though economically transformative, these developments carried hidden environmental costs, embedding fossil fuel dependency deep within the British economy. Between 1980 and 2010 alone, road transport emissions rose by 50%, driven ironically by efforts to relieve congestion through motorway expansion (Gasparatos et al. 2009). Instead of solving congestion, these projects induced higher vehicle demand and carbon emissions, a paradox still unresolved today.

Unintended Consequences: The Path We Continue to Follow

Today, despite mounting climate awareness, Britain remains caught in patterns rooted deeply in historical decisions. The transport sector equates to 17.2% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions (Ons.gov.uk, 2023). Electric vehicle adoption, although a powerful lever for achieving the Net Zero goal, struggles against inadequate charging infrastructure beyond major urban centres, stifling progress towards meaningful decarbonisation.

Britain’s transport habits established decades ago such as road-reliant freight logistics and air travel prioritisation remain unchanged. Recent decisions – scaling back HS2 while expanding Heathrow Airport – illustrate continued short-term economic prioritisation over long-term sustainability. Urban planning largely remains car-centric, failing to address legacy patterns that perpetuate the reliance on private vehicles.

Despite this we must also acknowledge the positive steps that Britain has already undertaken towards Net Zero – such as committing to phase out new petrol and diesel vehicle sales by 2030, investing significantly in offshore wind energy projects, and continuing expansion of electric vehicle charging infrastructure nationwide. Initiatives like London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and increased funding for cycling and pedestrian infrastructure demonstrate genuine progress towards sustainable transport mobility. These approaches are solid – but it begs the question – in a world which changes dramatically year on year, are they enough?

Anticipating Radical Shifts: Transport in the UK by 2050

Rather than merely addressing today’s transport challenges with a 2025 mindset, Britain must anticipate and respond to unprecedented disruptions that will redefine mobility by 2050. Four dramatic shifts are poised to be particularly vital for the UK’s future: the explosive rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the mass electrification of transport, the renaissance of nuclear energy, and profound changes in the ways we tackle urban mobility.

The rapid rise of AI has the potential to fundamentally transform transport efficiency and dramatically reduce emissions by reshaping road usage through advanced autonomous vehicles and intelligent, predictive traffic management systems. Autonomous vehicles, guided by sophisticated AI models, promise fewer accidents, smoother traffic flows, and substantial reductions in congestion (Park et al, 2021). AI-driven logistics can further optimise freight routes, significantly cutting energy consumption and emissions. However, beneath these promising benefits lies a critical hidden environmental risk: the immense energy demands required to power AI infrastructure itself. For instance, training a single advanced AI model can generate emissions equivalent to five petrol-powered cars over their entire lifetimes, inclusive of their manufacturing processes and fuel consumption (Strubell et al., 2019).

These stark figures illustrate a paradox inherent in AI adoption: without proactive policy measures, the UK risks intensifying its existing energy challenges rather than alleviating them. To fully leverage AI’s potential for sustainable transport, immediate action is required to ensure AI data centres and computational processes are powered exclusively by sustainable energy sources, such as renewables or next-generation nuclear reactors. Additionally, investing in highly efficient data centre designs, improved cooling systems, and energy-efficient computing hardware is crucial to mitigate AI’s potential environmental drawbacks. Early recognition and action on these challenges represents an essential opportunity for the UK not only to avoid exacerbating its energy crisis but also to position itself as a global leader in the responsible and sustainable integration of AI into future transport systems.

Mass electrification of transport offers Britain a second vital pathway to dramatically reduce transport emissions and achieve Net Zero targets. Transitioning millions of vehicles, aircraft, buses, and trains from fossil fuels to electricity, however, demands significant modernisation of the UK’s ageing electrical grid. Recent advancements in battery storage technologies, such as large-scale lithium-ion installations and emerging solid-state battery solutions, now enable more efficient management of renewable energy, greatly improving grid resilience and capacity. Furthermore, breakthroughs in smart-grid technologies—integrating AI-driven demand-response systems and real-time analytics—allow precise control of electricity distribution, smoothing fluctuations in supply and demand (Pham et al, 2021).

To fully capitalise on these advancements, proactive investment is essential. Expanding grid infrastructure alongside widespread adoption of decentralised renewable energy sources such as offshore wind, solar, and tidal power can further support the electrified transport transition. By strategically leveraging innovative battery storage and smart-grid systems, Britain can ensure its electrified future is sustainable and efficient, avoiding past infrastructure mistakes and positioning itself as a global leader in intelligent energy management.

Nuclear power is poised to play a crucial role in achieving the UK’s low-carbon electrification goals. According to the London School of Economics, nuclear energy currently provides almost 30% of the world’s low-carbon electricity, making it the second-largest source after hydropower (Lse.ac.uk, 2022). The UK’s House of Lords Library reports that nuclear power contributed 13.9% of the UK’s total electricity supply in 2022 highlighting the critical role it plays and can continue to play in the national energy mix and the road to net-zero (Lordslibary.parliament.uk, 2023).

To supplement the UK’s nuclear capacity, adopting new-generation modular nuclear reactors such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) presents another viable pathway. A study published in Applied Energy indicates that SMRs offer a flexible and potentially cost-effective alternative to traditional large-scale reactors (Xie et Al, 2024) aligning with the UK’s decarbonization objectives. Additionally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency highlights that SMRs can address challenges associated with large reactors, including high upfront costs and lengthy construction timelines, thereby facilitating a more adaptable and resilient energy infrastructure.

Finally, to complement mass electrification and nuclear energy strategies, Britain must carefully predict and shape the future of urban mobility and city design. Historically, the UK’s transport policies heavily emphasised private vehicle ownership, extensive motorway networks, and mass aviation, all of which locked the country into energy-intensive lifestyles. However, societal shifts towards home working and digital connectivity, accelerated significantly by COVID-19, provide an unprecedented opportunity to rethink these past choices. By 2050, these changing patterns of work and communication could lead British cities towards adopting the “15-minute city” concept—already being actively pursued in Paris (Ft.com, 2025)—where workplaces, healthcare, education, and leisure facilities become accessible within a short walk or cycle from home.

Such urban design not only dramatically reduces reliance on cars but also fosters stronger community interaction, healthier lifestyles, and significant reductions in urban emissions and congestion. Strategically implementing this concept could fundamentally reshape urban living, creating more sustainable and interconnected communities across the UK.

Embracing this model could provide an avenue to begin reversing decades of dependence on energy-intensive transportation but also create more sustainable and interconnected communities, fundamentally reshaping urban living in the UK. Encouraging this urban transformation would also significantly reduce reliance on private vehicles, thereby cutting emissions and alleviating congestion.

Conclusion: A Moment to Rewrite Britain’s Transport Future

In 2025, Britain stands at a pivotal moment, shaped profoundly by half a century of transport decisions prioritising private vehicles, aviation, and energy-intensive lifestyles. Encouraging progress is already underway—such as expanding electric vehicle infrastructure, offshore wind development, and emission-focused urban initiatives like ULEZ. Yet, to truly achieve Net Zero by 2050, Britain must now boldly anticipate transformative disruptions that will reshape transport entirely. Proactively embracing the dramatic potential of AI, next-generation nuclear power, mass electrification, and redesigned urban mobility will allow the UK not only to undo past environmental harm but to lead globally in sustainable innovation. Ultimately, our success in reaching Net Zero will depend on whether we dare to act radically today – learning from our history, building on current strengths, and confidently preparing for a dramatically different future.

References

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