Transition co-design for purposive United Kingdom road freight decarbonisation

This thesis addresses the problem that, despite rapid and radical decarbonisation being identified as necessary to avert the most severe climate change scenarios, the decarbonisation of road freight in the United Kingdom (UK) and other countries remains slow and incremental. It was found in my previous MSc research that, while most research into road freight decarbonisation is techno-economic, many of the barriers to this transition are political and socio-technical. Furthermore, as a result of system complexity and dependencies, it was concluded that rapid and radical decarbonisation can only be affected via purposive intent and coordinated action. Consequently, the two overarching research questions addressed by the thesis are: “What are the requirements for rapid and radical road freight decarbonisation recognising political and socio-technical as well as techno-economic dimensions?” and “How can these requirements be purposively fulfilled?”.

The thesis is in the alternative format and includes six papers that investigate different aspects of the research questions:
1. Decarbonising road freight by operationalising transition theory: A systematic literature review
2. Transition codesign for purposive road freight decarbonisation
3. Decision pathways for road freight decarbonization
4. Pathplotter: A software tool for codesigning transition decision pathways
5. Purposive transition governance for road freight decarbonization
6. Hydrogen for long-haul road freight: A realist retroductive assessment

In addition to key findings regarding the two research questions, the thesis makes the following novel theoretical and methodological contributions: a conceptual transition attributes framework; a process and tool for decision pathway codesign; a purposive transition governance framework; a realist retroductive approach for transition option assessment; and a “purposivist” approach for interdisciplinary transitions research. Collectively, the research findings and contributions provide specific transition insights and a toolkit for policymakers, industry participants and researchers seeking to purposively enact road freight decarbonisation in the UK.