Greenwash: High price for greener bus travel

Efforts by Stagecoach to green its bus services mean nothing unless it slashes the prices and runs its buses at full capacity

Fred Pearce
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 February 2009 10.57 GMT

Stagecoach operates 7,000 British buses and thousands more in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Montreal and other North American cities.

Stagecoach is going green – and don't you forget it. Its boss, Brian Souter, may have a reputation for hard-nosed business, but it is now on a quest for "smarter, greener bus travel".
Last year, the man with 7,000 British buses and thousands more in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Montreal and other North American cities, launched the first carbon-free bus service. It runs from Edinburgh to Fife and offsets its emissions by planting trees in the Scottish Highlands.
Bus travel doesn't have to be offset to be greener than most alternatives, but it depends on how full your buses are. I take regular journeys on Souter's buses across the South Downs in southern England. And in my experience they are about the emptiest buses on the planet, with an over-sized carbon footprint to match.
A while ago, during the summer high season, I tracked a series of journeys I took on Stagecoach's finest. When my wife and I boarded a 40-seater bus from Petworth to Midhurst, we were the only passengers on board most of the way. Later in the week, there were six of us from Chichester to West Marden, and four of us on a double-decker from Chichester to Singleton. This is pretty normal.
Cost may have something to do with it. Four of us took a 20-minute bus ride from Chichester to a country pub the other day for lunch. The return fare was the wrong side of £26. My experience of Souter's Sussex line is that on many journeys, only pensioners travel, because their fares are picked up by the government. If cost is no barrier for your customers, maybe there is no incentive to make the buses more affordable. But it also compromises the service's green credentials.
According to the government, the average omnibus emits between 820-1040g of carbon dioxide for every kilometre travelled. With four passengers, that works out at, at least, 205g each and with two passengers, 411g each. Substantially more than the emissions for a short-haul flight of about 160g per passenger kilometres in a well-filled plane.
Souter has in the past claimed that people in the south of England "are choosing to use the bus as part of their carbon footprint plan." Only, it would seem, if they can afford it.
Now, I would be the last person to call for the axing of country buses. I use them frequently. But I do think it is madness to price them so that they run at 90% empty. That may make commercial sense, Mr Souter. But it ain't green.
Stagecoach does have some inventive green initiatives, all laudable in themselves. It runs some buses on chip fat plus vending machines at an Aberdeen park-and-ride that give fare tokens in return for recycled cans (20p for 50 cans, so it's not worth a long detour). And the company offers free travel to Perth parents girding their babies with washable nappies.
Maybe the Sussex downs is a special case. I checked Stagecoach's environmental policy document to scope the rest of the company's bus business and became even more confused. The online version of the document says in big letters on page three that "a journey by bus produces 10 times less emissions than the same journey by car." Later, in smaller print on page eight, it says that "buses produce 30% less emissions per passenger kilometre than cars."
It seems to me that the claims to produce "10 times less" and "30% less" are different by a factor of seven. The only way I can think of squaring them is if they are talking about different types of emission, which aren't specified.
Elsewhere the policy document gives some other figures for carbon dioxide emissions. But they are "per passenger journey", so I can't compare them with either of the other two. And another part of the website suggests that CO2 emissions for buses "per kilometre" are about 40% of those of a car. Might that be "per passenger kilometre"? Who knows?
Stagecoach is also inventive with its green PR. Local papers round Britain were awash last month with stories about its plans to purchase 400 "new greener buses".
Actually, they will simply meet new EU emissions standards that come into force on 1 September. After that date, it will be a breach of European law to sell buses that don't meet those standards. So the only alternative to buying buses that are up to scratch emissions-wise would be to buy secondhand buses - but hey, a headline is a headline.
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