“I think allowing road pricing schemes to be designed by economists and only economists is really, really dangerous,” says Rory Sutherland on today’s Highways Voices Podcast, “Because there’s a huge amount of price being a perception, and one of the big strong, really, really strong evolved instincts in humans is a sense of fairness.”

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The leading behavioural scientist and commentator gave the keynote speech at the JCT Traffic Signals Symposium, and you’ll hear some of what he had to say today. In his address, which he gave with his book co-writer Pete Dyson, he discusses how transport planners too often consider the average instead of different needs by different people.

Talking about ideas they give in the book Transport for Humans, he warned against simply delivering services based on things which are easily measurable. “We think it’s all about speed and capacity and time,” he says, “And I think as a result, transport innovation has been held back, because we’re only looking at the metrics that we know.”

The whole of the speech will be shared on the JCT Traffic Signals Symposium in due course, but for now enjoy some of Rory’s speech, plus you’ll hear on the podcast from TTF Manager Darren Capes, ITS Policy Manager at the Department for Transport. In his address at the Symposium, he challenges the industry to use traffic signals to deliver better, more reliable journeys, promote active travel by making it easier for vulnerable road users and people who walk and cycle to access our roads more safely, and to prepare for the future technology and travel needs.

(Darren Capes starts at 3m58s and Rory Sutherland at 19m52s).

We’ll also have news from our partners, including a new video from ADEPT giving an overview of the Live Labs 2 programme, and we’ll hear the latest news and why a road safety initiative in London wins Adrian’s Acolade.