Electric avenues

It’s an issue that affects nearly all of us, yet it barely featured in the various election campaigns: with average journey times getting slower and slower, the UK’s motorway network is grinding to a halt.

This isn’t just frustrating for those of us who use it every day, it’s a problem with potentially high economic costs. According to claims by motoring pressure group the RAC Foundation, congestion currently costs transport users and operators at least £15bn a year — and this figure could double in the next decade. So what can be done to reverse the situation?

Fortunately, amid the clamour for more roads, an increasingly vocal group of planners, engineers and academics is proposing a range of more thoughtful solutions. They claim that technology can make a real contribution to reducing congestion at a fraction of the cost of road-building programmes.

This is not just idle techno-banter either. It is happening, now, quietly and without fanfare turning the UK into a global centre of excellence for road technology.