New transport minister Lord Adonis has vowed to support low-carbon reasearch and development in Britain, as well as continuing progress in improving the combustion engine.
Speaking at the Transport Times Conference today, Lord Adonis also pledged to reduce congestion on the UK’s roads, with schemes including the use of hard shoulders as an additional lane on motorways.
Lord Adonis said: “Technology is part of the answer. We need to move as fast as is economically, socially and technologically viable to lower carbon options.
“For road vehicles, this means government intervention on a number of fronts, from developing new vehicle standards through the EU, to supporting R&D and helping UK industry maximise the opportunities from a shift to lower carbon technology.”
He added that significant improvements were still to be had from improving the efficiency of the combustion engine. Development of electric and hybrid technologies would also continue, he said.
On motorways, Lord Adonis said there would be: “an increase in motorway capacity in congested areas over the next decade, but not by means of new motorways, or even for the most part widened motorways, but rather by means of hard-shoulder running, which has now been shown on the M42 to be safe and effective.”
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