Electric vehicle – Sustainable Smart Cities

Nottingham Invests in Ultra Low Emissions

£6.1m awarded to Nottingham by the Government to accelerate low emission vehicles announced.

Nottingham has secured funding to become one of the UK’s exemplar Go Ultra Low Cities, enabling the city to implement a wide range of new initiatives to make electric vehicles and sustainable transport more accessible. The £6.1m for the period April 2016 – March 2021 from the Government’s Go Ultra Low City Scheme will help the city boost its sustainability agenda still further, making a real difference to the environment and quality of life for local residents and businesses. Watch Portfolio Holder for Jobs, Growth and Transport Councillor Nick McDonald‘s response to the announcement and find out more about the project by visiting www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/golownottm

Nottingham is already one of the UK’s exemplar cities for integrated sustainable transport and energy generation. We are committed to working with our local partners, industry and Government to implement measures to drive uptake in Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEV) to address local air quality and environmental health issues, attract inward investment and create job opportunities in the growing low carbon transport technology sector.

Nottinghamshire and Derby will use £6 million of funding to install 230 charge points and will offer ULEV owners discount parking, as well as access to over 13 miles of bus lanes along key routes across the cities. The investment will also pay for a new business support programme, letting local companies ‘try before they buy’.

The city’s ambitions to be a ‘Low Emission City’ are already shown by:

Europe’s largest electric bus fleet with 45 full electric buses in operation on our Linkbus network and 13 more electric buses on order.
Expansion of the electric NET tram system to three lines spanning 34km.
Inclusion of ULEVs as part of the Council’s current fleet makeup.
Electric vehicles operating in our growing car club.
Electric vehicle charging infrastructure already in place at key Park and Ride services, workplaces and destinations.
Two local private hire companies operating 6 full electric and 150 hybrid vehicles
Only Go Ultra Low shortlisted city to be awarded Lighthouse City status by EU. Funding secured for REMO Urban project for smart low carbon transport, energy and ICT projects.
Local commitment to the electrification of the Midland Mainline.
Local Authority owned, Robin Hood Energy and Enviroenergy generating and supplying local sustainable power for residents, businesses and transport.

Whilst delighted that Nottingham has been successful it leaves a number of cities without access to the same sort of funding to make real impact on the UK’s failing air quality objectives. Cities with a known air quality problem, like Leeds, Manchester and my home city of Sheffield will not get the benefit this kind of intervention can achieve. It is these cities where scale, density and ambition can make a faster and deeper difference. Meanwhile, they continue to fail to achieve their local air quality objectives and more and more people are subjected to poor air quality and the health impacts it causes. Bristol, London and Milton Keynes (which appears to be technology-led rather than air quality led) will also benefit from this funding.

The truth about smart cities: ‘In the end, they will destroy democracy’ | Cities | The Guardian

The truth about smart cities: ‘In the end, they will destroy democracy’ | Cities | The Guardian.

The smart city concept arguably dates back at least as far as the invention of automated traffic lights, which were first deployed in 1922 in Houston, Texas. Leo Hollis, author of Cities Are Good For You, says the one unarguably positive achievement of smart city-style thinking in modern times is the train indicator boards on the London Underground. But in the last decade, thanks to the rise of ubiquitous internet connectivity and the miniaturisation of electronics in such now-common devices as RFID tags, the concept seems to have crystallised into an image of the city as a vast, efficient robot – a vision that originated, according toAdam Greenfield at LSE Cities, with giant technology companies such as IBM, Cisco and Software AG, all of whom hoped to profit from big municipal contracts.

Driving growth – Labour and electric cars > Article :: IPPR

Driving growth – Labour and electric cars > Article :: IPPR.

Last week, the government updated its electric car strategy. There is good news in it – especially the announcement of £500m to be made available over the next parliament to support electric cars. However, there are clear problems with this strategy so Labour has an opportunity to set out its own, more radical, agenda.

IPPR research has shown that in other countries innovative local policies drives sales. In Amsterdam, electric cars don’t pay the €5 an hour charge and are put to the top of the five-year waiting list for a permit. In the global capital for electric cars, Oslo, drivers can use the bus lanes. In China, electric cars are exempt from Beijing’s licence plate lottery which limits the days on which drivers can use their cars.

Sustainable Cities Need Low Emission Vehicles

As a follow on to an earlier piece on air quality – great to see examples of electric adn hydrogen technologies being applied to transport systems. Today I’ve read some great pieces on ‘Hybrid Van Man’ – see https://www.innovateuk.org/-/meet-the-hybrid-van-man and the ‘Try before you buy’ approach being adopted in the UK, to build confidence in electric vehicles. Worth looking at the most recent posts from the Energy Savings Trust: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/blog/2013/07/17/evs-looking-to-volt-higher/

Also great to see increasing investment in hydrogen and delighted that Sheffield’s ITM Power (www.itm-power.com/clean-fuel/) are leading the way in that respect.

So, whilst EVs are phasing in ever-quicker in the private car and light van market and hydrogen is catching up, it leaves a gap for the heavier vehicles. Which is why we’re working with fleet operators to develop refuelling stations across Sheffield City Region supplying compressed natural gas and biomethane. This forms part of the South Yorkshire bid to the Dept for Transport’s Clean Bus Technology Fund.