Dear Editor,

Your recent article highlighting the demand for Scotland’s roads to be updated couldn’t come at a more poignant time.

Increasingly, there is pressure not only to improve the nation’s road infrastructure, but also to keep carbon emissions down and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

The good news is technologies like autonomous driving, smart mobility and dynamic EV charging have arrived, and they can help. I’m writing this from the ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) World Congress in Bordeaux and it’s all here being discussed, displayed and demonstrated.

The TEV Project recommends advancement in road design by employing technologies like these. Our analysis shows that redesigned roads could be be faster, safer, cheaper and make EVs practical whilst ensuring traffic flow continues in higher capacity. They could make public transport more flexible and reliable. Our strategy is to create an open-source infrastructure system fit for purpose for the 21st century and beyond.

The Scottish Government has the tricky task of striking the balance between upgrading its roads and upholding green policies. It can’t do it simply by laying yet more swathes of tarmac for yet more diesel fume-belching cars to crawl along.   Even now, after miles of road are built, tailbacks still occur and only create a temporary fix, not a permanent solution.

Instead, decision makers need to consider how we should be getting around intelligently in decades to come and work back from that. We need innovative solutions to safeguard the health and wellbeing of our travelling populations of the future, including exploring how we can travel from A to B efficiently and responsibly.

The nation’s road troubles are a headache, but they present an opportunity. With Scotland’s history of transport innovation, where better to pioneer the road of the future?

Yours sincerely

Caroline Jones Carrick
Director, TEV Project
Prestwick, Ayrshire, Scotland