Dr. Sarah Rock:

I wish to make a small additional point to that quickly. It was good to hear Dr. D'Arcy raise the issue of public health co-benefits. Using air quality as an example, without sounding too dramatic, poor air quality is one of our biggest silent killers in urban areas, so much so that about half of new asthma cases in Irish urban cities can be attributed to poor air quality due to traffic, which is an astounding figure. That is based on an international study of air quality by The Lancet.

We have a massive knowledge deficit around that area. I know it is something the EPA is working on with regard to additional monitors. That is something we need to know about because we can taste it in the air but we cannot really see it that much. People do not know about relationships between traffic, for example, and air quality. The WHO recently changed its guidelines around what it considers to be an acceptable level of risk when it comes to air quality. We might be quite surprised to find how much we would fail in that area, but there are lots of things we can do. Low emission zones are an important aspect. Even measures like widening footpaths and adding street trees. Not only do we improve the pedestrian experience but we have an ability to start to improve our air quality. I believe that is a critical issue.

I have a small point to make about the freight hubs. We should, absolutely, be integrating with logistics a lot more. That is the whole multidisciplinary side of things. There is huge potential there for mobility hubs, particularly for the last mile or last few kilometres of journeys. Freight is changing; there is no doubt about it. Reference was made to what was outside the window, and that is happening all around the world. There is a significant area there that we have the potential to tap into as well.