Decision pathways for road freight decarbonization

• The need for decision pathways is confirmed. • The ability of mixed actor groups to codesign pathways is demonstrated. • Requirements to apply this approach to road freight decarbonization are identified. • Pivotal decisions, barriers and enablers are highlighted. • Socio-technical, political, and decision governance factors are critical. The road freight system is complex, with many system dependencies. These dependencies mean that individual actors are often unable to take radical decarbonization action alone, and system-level decisions are required. Decision dependencies mean decision pathways are needed specifying key decisions and decision sequencing. Five decision pathway workshops were held with mixed groups of industry actors, policymakers and experts. Decarbonization barriers, enablers and decisions were identified and dependencies between these specified. A new software tool “Pathplotter” was used to facilitate pathway definition and analysis, and workshop commentary was qualitatively analyzed using NVivo. It was found that it is possible for mixed actor groups to define decision pathways, and requirements to operationalize this approach are identified. While techno-economic factors remain important, most barriers, enablers and required decisions are found to be socio-technical, political or related to decision governance. This reinforces the need for more research into these understudied transition aspects.