Boost bus use to cut carbon emissions, groups urge government

Public transport groups say 1 billion car journeys could be taken off roads with more bus-friendly initiatives
Dan Milmo
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 19.35 BST
Public transport groups have urged the government to take 1 billion car journeys off British roads by imposing targets for more bus and coach use, creating more lanes and building more park-and-ride sites outside towns and cities.
Bus industry executives said a much-mooted high-speed rail line was a distant prospect and claimed that coach and bus travel could achieve significant emissions reductions over a shorter period of time. The Greener Journeys campaign, launched today, said that if one of of 25 journeys were made by bus or coach rather than car it could save 2m tonnes of carbon dioxide within three and cut 1 billion car trips over the same period.
"[High-speed rail] is 20 years off and there are huge sums of money associated with it. We can take 1bn car journeys off the road in the space of three years. With some pretty low-level initiatives we think that we can achieve some big strides forward," said Professor David Begg, former chairman of the Commission for Integrated Transport.
The bus industry's public service credentials were tarnished last month after the Office of Fair Trading warned that millions of bus passengers were being overcharged. Brian Souter, chief executive of Stagecoach group, said he "totally refuted" the OFT's initial findings. "I believe that we deliver very good value for money across the country," he said.
Bus and coach trips account for around 6% of passenger journeys in the UK, compared with 84% for motor vehicles and 7% for trains. Tackling transport emissions will be a key factor in achieving the government's carbon dioxide reduction target of 80% by 2050. Transport accounts for around a quarter of British domestic emissions, with buses accounting for less than 4% of all carbon dioxide generated by travel.
Executives from Britain's five largest public transport groups – Arriva, National Express, Go-Ahead, Stagecoach and FirstGroup – said small changes, such as more investment by local authorities in bus lanes, could make bus and coach travel more attractive, with only two out of 10 drivers describing themselves as "die-hard" motorists.
"Bus lanes reduce bus journey times and are not expensive to implement," said Martin Dean, managing director of bus development at Go-Ahead. He said local authorities could set targets for the proportion of journeys made by bus, depending on the amount of bus services and quality of facilities offered by a town, city or local area.