The news that London homeowners are going to be incentivised with free electric recharging points, worth £1,500, in return for off-street parking via parkatmyhouse.com got me thinking about not only what such a clever idea it was but also where I first heard about it.
One of the partners in the project is Chargemaster, whose chief executive David Martell, was one of the guest panellists at the recent ICFM annual national members’ conference held at the Mini plant in Oxford.
It was he who highlighted during the debate on the future of urban mobility the ridiculous scenario currently faced by EV drivers of no standard plug and socket.
And he tipped off the 195 attendees of the imminent announcement of the aforementioned recharging initiative with other partners, energy company SSE and Source London.
For EV owners, it means that for the first time they can reserve a recharging point, no doubt alleviating anxiety over battery range.
David Martell’s was just one of the many interesting contributions to a lively and thoroughly enlightening debate on the future of urban mobility, ably chaired by Professor Stephen Glaister CBE, Professor of Transport and Infrastructure at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London.
He is a director of the Railway Technology Strategy Centre, a former board member of Transport for London and director of the RAC Foundation.
His transport credentials shone through and helped steer the all too short 90-minute session. So interesting was the topic, members were eager for more.
Dr Colin Herron, MD, Zero Carbon Futures highlighted the lack of strategy and plans for a transport infrastructure and contrasted this with Japan where all new cities are carefully planned with no on-street parking and consolidated deliveries.
The former allows free-flowing traffic and the latter avoids HGVs from clogging up road networks.
Caroline Watson, transport strategy manager at Energy Saving Trust drew attention to the fact that while fuel had rocketed by 18 per cent in the last two years, pure EVs offered up to five times savings compared to diesel in some situations.
Increased urbanisation was a common theme. Suzanne Gray, general manager of BMW Project i at BMW Group UK and lead on the Mini E project advised the audience that since 2008 more people in the UK lived in urban than rural areas.
As a consequence, downsizing of vehicles, use of different fuels and modes of transport heralded the future along with rental rather than ownership.
Darren Lindsey, head of government & public affairs, Michelin PLC, underlined that 60 per cent of UK citizens now lived in towns and cities as well as the fact that new tyre technology could reduce rolling resistance and thus vehicle emissions by 7g/km.
From Government, Richard Bruce, head of the Office for Low Emissions Vehicles reckons there will be a struggle for vehicle manufacturers to get vehicles below 50g/km and more EVs will therefore be commonplace along with a different variety of cars.
Professor Allan Hutchinson of Oxford Brookes University focused on the population explosion leading to further urbanisation.
Car growth was inevitable but individual ownership was not the answer. Vehicle utilisation should be based on choice, convenience and fun.
This conference was undoubtedly the most successful in the ICFM’s 20-year history.
It’s success was in no small part due to conference hosts BMW and other conference main partner, FMG. Together with support partners Michelin and Fleet Hire Vehicle Management, the Institute was able to showcase wonderfully why all those involved in fleet, at whatever level, would benefit from its education and training programmes and networking opportunities.
For those who missed it, there’s now an excellent short four-minute video on the Institute’s home page at www.icfm.com.
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