Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Spectators podcast. I'm Kate Andrews.

As the government doubles down on its commitment to hit net zero carbon missions by 2050,

there's a lot of anticipation and questions about what this might mean as we go about our daily lives.

The future of transport is no exception.

Having already announced a ban on the sale of petrol cars by 2030,

it's an area where the government is hoping to make relatively quick advancements and efficiencies, but at what cost?

Joining me today to discuss the hopes and hurdles for greener transport infrastructure,

we have the minister from the Department of Transport, Rachel McLean, MP,

Roger Hunter, VP for Electric Mobility at Shell, and Professor David Levinson, a civil engineer

at the University of Sydney.

This podcast is kindly sponsored by Shell.

David, when it comes to the future of transport, what qualities are on the wish list?

We can talk about some of the challenges in getting there in a bit. But for now, can you paint a picture of what the future of transport should look like?

Yeah, so the future of transport should be efficient. It should be safe. It shouldn't have significant environmental impacts.

It should be convenient for people. It should be an experience that they want to have, that they

get pleasure from.

So the transport system today doesn't meet those criteria very well, right?

So we have a system where we're stuck in traffic, a system where more than a million people die a year and road crashes globally.

We have a system that is one of the

leading contributors to climate change and causes lots of premature deaths from air pollution,

a system that is the least happy experience that people have during their day. So there's a lot

of opportunities for improvement. Rachel, the government has an ongoing future of transport program.

...