23. How should we manage the safety risks (actual or perceived) associated with alternative fuels and batteries, including the transportation of Dangerous Goods?
Background
DfT’s ARI identifies 40 broad research questions that reflect areas of strategic importance to the department, where further insight and collaboration could enhance our evidence base, challenge assumptions and strengthen future decision-making. The ARI is organised around four complementary themes, and this question sits within the Delivering Green and Healthy Transport theme.
Transport has a significant influence on environmental outcomes and public health, shaping greenhouse gas emissions, air quality, noise, physical activity and the resilience of communities to climate change. Decisions about how transport systems are planned, operated and used therefore play a critical role in tackling climate change, protecting the natural environment and supporting healthier lives.
This theme recognises that environmental sustainability and health outcomes are closely linked, and that transport interventions can deliver multiple benefits when these objectives are considered together. Cleaner vehicles and fuels, safer and more attractive streets, and shifts towards walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport can reduce environmental harm while improving physical and mental health, including through improved safety outcomes. At the same time, transport has negative effects on safety, air pollution, noise, inactivity and climate risks which we aim to reduce.
Transport’s environmental and health impacts are shaped by interactions with wider systems, including energy, the built environment, nature and public health. Understanding these interactions is essential to addressing long term challenges such as decarbonisation, climate adaptation, air pollution and health inequalities, and to ensuring that transport interventions deliver lasting benefits across different places and population groups.
Delivering green and healthy transport requires action across multiple timescales and levers, from technological change and infrastructure investment to behaviour, service design and spatial planning. The ARIs therefore seek research that deepens our understanding of how transport can reduce environmental harms and support better health outcomes.
Next steps
If you have research relevant to this topic, are planning work in this area, or would like to discuss potential collaboration, please get in touch. For our monitoring and evaluation purposes, we are also keen to hear if the ARI has informed or influenced your research.
To get in touch and report the use, please fill in the form https://submit.forms.service.gov.uk/form/264718/dft-areas-of-research-interest-ari/
Link to DfT ARI: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dft-areas-of-research-interest/areas-of-research-interest-2026
Topics
Related UKRI funded projects
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Global Centers Track 1: CLEETS - CLean Energy and Equitable Transportation Solutions
Transport energy demand accounts for 24% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, the single largest sector, more than energy supply, business or residential. 90% of these transport emissions are from road transport: 52% f...
Funded by: ISPF
Lead research organisation: University of Birmingham
Why might this be relevant?
Addresses the management of safety risks associated with alternative fuels and batteries, including transportation of Dangerous Goods.
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Decarbonising Transport through Electrification, a Whole System Approach (DTE)
The proposed multidisciplinary network for Decarbonizing Transport through Electrification (DTE) will bring together research expertise to address the challenges of interactions between energy networks, future electric v...
Funded by: EPSRC
Lead research organisation: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Why might this be relevant?
Partially addresses the challenges of interactions between energy networks, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and electrification of transport.
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Swap-It: Decarbonising last-mile transport with modular battery swap stations
In March 2020, the Department for Transport (DfT) released the first part of its transport decarbonisation Plan (TDP) which sets out the case for action and the scale of the policy gap. The emissions reduction trajectory...
Funded by: Innovate UK
Lead research organisation: MOONLIGHT ENERGY LTD
Why might this be relevant?
Partially addresses the management of safety risks associated with alternative fuels and batteries through battery swapping for electric motorcycles and scooters.