Environmental Implications

In this section, I sketch a few environmental factors that an intelligent transport infrastructure might need to cope with. If this all sounds a bit ‘doom and gloom,’ consider this: when I produced a draft of this assessment of environmental implications, it provoked a few quizzical looks and perhaps a bit of scepticism that some of these effects could be all that major. A few days later the UK had a spate of tornados: one, in Birmingham, left the transport infrastructure littered with debris and the wind drove posts of wood through vehicles’ windscreens with considerable force. A few weeks, later we had hurricanes Katrina and others to watch with awe and some trepidation. Not just the one or two events here – one after another, week after week.