Coventry: forging ahead as a future transport city

As part of our Strategic Energy Partnership with Coventry City Council, we hosted a roundtable discussion of industry, city and academic leaders at this summer’s Coventry MotoFest event exploring how cities can prepare for the future of energy and develop transport methods to cope and to thrive.

The discussion (which you can watch it in full below) explored how cities need to adapt to the climate crisis and included the policies needed to drive change across cities, the opportunities for new technologies and how to inspire people to make their own changes at home or at work.

• Regulatory and policy changes needed locally and nationally to support electrification in cities and the automotive/transport industry in their transition.
• What transport methods in the city of the future might look like.
• The increasing demand for skills and green engineering jobs, and how can schools, universities and employers work together to enthuse the next generation and ensure education and training opportunities are available to all .
• Obstacles faced by innovators, entrepreneurs and start-ups and how they can be overcome.
• Getting people to adapt or even provoke change.

Here are some of the key comments from the range of speakers at the roundtable event:

“The jobs of the future, the regeneration of the future all has to be sustainable and links positively into our climate change agenda. I believe if you give people alternatives, if you give people choice, more often than not they will make the right choice both for them, both for their families, both for the environment and the climate.” 
Councillor Jim O’Boyle – Cabinet Member for Jobs, Regeneration and Climate Change, Coventry City Council

“Sustainability is a key topic for people in my generation. Theres not just one element to that, it’s also of course engineering but there are many different aspects of sustainability; electrification in terms of routes, mental health, wellbeing and of course how engineering can affect things like health.
"I’m pretty sure everybody has the same goals in terms of sustainability, wanting things to be healthier but i guess because of the climate, maybe due to different solutions we are not all seeing eye to eye but there should be a way to being on the same page in terms of having a path.” 
Amanda Kangai – Mechanical Engineer, E.ON Next Veloce Racing

“What we’ve got is a very interconnected socio-economic and technical-economic framework. You can’t do that without understanding local needs and requirements, that’s vital. Bring people along for the ride and that way you enjoy scale-up opportunities of the technology and see the benefits.
“If we envision what Coventry is going to look like in the future, it’s going to be where you can seamlessly move from one mode to another without having to expend too much energy. Your customer experience will be good, you’ll be in a better frame of mind, you’ll get out and about easier if you need accessible or inclusive transport so there’s huge benefits in mental health and wellbeing, and that’s the vision for the residents of Coventry for the future…”
Kevin Vincent – Connected and Automated Vehicle Research, Coventry University

“The reason people love their cars still is because it says ‘I can get away’. There’s an emotional thing there. If we understand that and incorporate that into our thinking about the way we plan our cities, the way our cities connect with the countryside, it’s how we think about stuff for the future. Its not just an A-to-B solution, it’s freedom of movement for people. They need to see the solutions we are developing as facilitators of that, not things which stop it. 
James Noble – Festival Director, Coventry MotoFest

“There’s many, many compelling reasons to get this right and ultimately this has to result in the end consumer having confidence they’re getting a green product, the cost is coming down, it’s affordable, and there’s a level of security around it. That’s what we’re aiming for.” 
Chris Lovatt – COO Energy Infrastructure Solutions, E.ON