Decarbonising road freight by operationalising transition theory: a systematic literature review

Abstract Background, context and purpose Rapid and radical road freight decarbonisation is necessary to achieve climate change mitigation goals, and yet to date it remains slow and incremental. While techno-economic perspectives are well studied for this specific transition, socio-technical and political perspectives are less so. Socio-technical and political transitions research may, however, provide helpful reflection on transition challenges and complexities. Motivated by these observations, this systematic literature review considers the research question: “What practical insights are provided by socio-technical and political transitions research that can aid purposive road freight decarbonisation”. Methods Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar searches were conducted that identified a deduplicated total of 5,743 research articles and review papers. Screening rules and terms were developed and applied to remove papers that did not meet relevance, forward-looking, design framing or stakeholder focus criteria, resulting in a shortlist of 57 papers. Further qualitative screening of abstracts and full paper text reduced the number of selected papers to 18. 1,599 citing and referenced papers of these 18 papers were also screened, and no additional papers met the selection criteria. The 18 papers were qualitatively coded and synthesised using NVivo to identify key socio-technical and political transition insights and themes. Results Sixteen specific insights into how socio-technical and political requirements of road freight decarbonisation can be purposively fulfilled are identified. These insights are grouped under the five themes of Actors, Arenas, Design, Policy and Politics. A further consideration of these insights applied to the specific case of UK road freight decarbonisation identifies three preconditions for a purposive transition approach to the adopted: 1) techno-economically feasible options able to deliver rapid and radical decarbonisation need to exist; 2) a shared understanding of the design choices that need to be codesigned is required; and 3) a politically and socio-technically feasible codesign framework to make these design choices must be established. Conclusions The new conceptual model formed by the five themes provides a framework that can be applied by transition actors, policymakers and researchers considering how this transition can be purposively brought about. In addition, specific policy, management and research implications are proposed. While this study has focused on road freight decarbonisation within a European or comparable political and socio-technical context, some findings may have wider applicability.