As Highways Voices continues its summer series of archive editions, this week’s podcast revisits one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking presentations ever delivered at the JCT Traffic Signals Symposium.
Advertising executive, behavioural scientist and author Rory Sutherland challenges transport professionals to stop thinking purely like engineers and economists and instead consider how psychology shapes the way people use, and react to, our transport networks.
In an extract from his 2023 keynote, Rory Sutherland argues that many of the industry’s biggest challenges are not technical problems at all, but behavioural ones. Drawing on examples ranging from road pricing and smart motorways to electric vehicles, queueing, rail travel and even airport security, he explains why the way an idea is presented can be just as important as the idea itself. Whether discussing “range anxiety” versus “infrastructure anxiety”, or why people hate uncertainty more than waiting, he makes the case that understanding human behaviour could unlock improvements worth billions of pounds.
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The talk is packed with memorable examples, including why Uber’s moving map transformed the taxi experience without making cars arrive any faster, how an app could improve rail capacity before new infrastructure is built, and why smart motorways suffer because motorists notice the problems but never see the traffic jams that have been prevented. Throughout, he argues that transport innovation should bring together psychologists, marketers, engineers and economists from the very start, rather than treating behavioural science as an afterthought.
It’s a keynote that’s as entertaining as it is challenging, with Rory Sutherland’s trademark wit prompting you to question many of the assumptions that underpin transport policy and investment. Whether you agree with every conclusion or not, it’s a fascinating reminder that changing behaviour can sometimes be more powerful than changing infrastructure.
The full keynote is available here, while this week’s podcast features a specially edited selection of the highlights. It also marks the first part of a special double-header featuring two of Britain’s best-known public thinkers.
Next week, Highways Voices revisits an archive interview with journalist and author Peter Hitchens, ahead of a brand-new series of conversations launching in September, when Hitchens and Sutherland will each return to the podcast to debate with each other. Together, they’ll explore transport, public policy, behaviour and society from two very different perspectives – making this summer’s archive episodes the perfect introduction to what’s coming next.
Highways Voices is brought to you with our podcast partners the Transport Technology Forum, LCRIG, ITS UK and ADEPT.
