Forum accelerates transport sector Energy Efficiency

May 13, 2016 by Global Fuel Economy Initiative

Categories: Global Fuel Economy Initiative

Sheila Watson, Executive Director of the Global Fuel Economy Initiative moderated the first ever transport efficiency panel at the leading global Energy Efficiency Forum - EEGlobal - in Washington D.C. on 11th May 2016.

The panel entitled ‘Transforming transportation: how are we leveraging information and communications technologies to improve mobility and enhance efficiency?’, included the President of the Electric Drive Association, Genevieve Cullen; Colin Hughes, the Director of National Policy & Project Evaluation at the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP); Siegfried Knecht from Airbus; Petra Mollet, the Chief of Staff at the American Public Transportation Association and Reuben Sarkar, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation, U.S Department of Energy.

The discussion centred on a systems approach to transportation and how connectivity, autonomy, and electrification are revolutionising modern transportation. The panel highlighted that the future of transportation, particularly in cities, will shift to a more personalised and consumer-connected system that will merge the private and public options of travel.

In addition, Sheila Watson shared GFEI’s work as one of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) ‘accelerator initiatives’. She highlighted the progress that GFEI has made since the Paris COP21 Climate Change conference in December, including starting to support many new countries to develop fuel economy policies. The meeting concluded that transport as a whole, and vehicles in particular, can make a huge contribution to the global energy efficiency effort towards reducing emissions and wasted energy.