Car Travel

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 13 January 2022.

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Photo of Graeme Dey Graeme Dey Scottish National Party

Today, I am pleased to publish a draft route map setting out how we will reduce car use to help create a fairer and greener Scotland. I am not aware of any other country in the world that is committing to such an ambitious objective. It sits within and alongside our world-leading commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 and to make Scotland a net zero nation by 2045.

The commitment is informed by the research on decarbonising transport that was published last September. The modelling in the research makes it clear that to decarbonise travel at the scale and pace needed to meet our statutory emissions targets we must not only switch to cleaner cars but reduce their overall use. In short, we need to drive down our car use. To achieve a 20 per cent reduction in car kilometres by 2030, we must look across a range of trip types, including short urban-based trips as well as longer leisure-related trips. Just 3 per cent of car trips are more than 35 kilometres, yet they are responsible for 30 per cent of the total kilometres travelled and thus make a disproportionate contribution to total emissions.

Understanding how people currently use their cars, alongside strong evidence that people want to see more Government action taken to address climate change, allows us to start a national conversation to support people to do what they tell us they want to do—to cut the distance that they travel by car. We have known that for some time, but today we shift up a gear with a much clearer destination in sight, and we begin the work of engaging people to understand the role that they can play as individuals and how that can translate into wider benefits in health and wellbeing for themselves, their families and their communities.

The route map is underpinned by three guiding principles. The first is that it is collaborative. It has been developed jointly with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and officials have also engaged widely with local authority and regional partners. That partnership matters, because change cannot be achieved solely at national level; it needs local solutions to be identified and delivered.

Secondly, the route map makes it clear that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Although 20 per cent is a national target, that does not mean that car use in rural and remote areas is expected to drop at the same rate as in towns and cities. We know that access to transport options varies across Scotland, so we will work with and support local partners to identify solutions that are most appropriate to Scotland’s urban, rural and island communities.

Thirdly, the principle of a just transition is at the heart of the route map, which will support our work to tackle inequality and child poverty. The route map recognises that there will be some people for whom reducing car use, especially in the short term, will be more challenging, including disabled people and their families. However, we also need to recognise the unfairness of the status quo where the car is king and car use is made too easy at the expense of other fairer options.

For people on the lowest incomes, 60 per cent have no access to a car. Of those with a long-term health problem or disability, the figure is 46 per cent. Younger and old people, women and certain minority ethnic groups are also less likely to have access to a car, including in rural areas. Also, we know that the worst effects of car use—air and noise pollution, road danger, community severance and congestion—fall disproportionately on the most marginalised in our society. Children in Scotland’s poorest communities are at three times higher risk of death or injury while out walking or cycling than those in other areas.

Reducing car dominance is about climate justice, but it also gets to the heart of social justice. That is why the route map identifies four key behaviours that will frame and underpin our national conversation. We want people to make use of sustainable online options to reduce their need to travel; to choose local destinations to reduce the distance that they travel; to switch to walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport where possible; and, although the past two years have discouraged this for very good reason, over time we want people to combine a trip or share a journey to reduce the number of individual car trips that they make, if a car remains the only feasible option.

Supporting and encouraging people to achieve those changes forms the basis of the 30-plus interventions that are identified in the route map. Some of them are already under way, including providing free bus travel for people aged under 22, which from the end of this month will enable more children, young people and their families to choose to travel by local bus, and our reaching 100 per cent broadband commitment to provide superfast broadband access for every home and business in Scotland to help to reduce the need to travel.

Other actions will take longer, but our commitment is backed up by significant long-term investment such as ensuring that at least 10 per cent of the total transport budget will go to active travel by 2024-25, to help more people to walk, wheel or cycle instead of drive. However, we cannot escape the scale of the challenge and must acknowledge that changing decades of belief and behaviour requires a mix of infrastructure, incentivisation and regulatory actions, some of which we still need to explore, test and apply.

In 2019, we provided local authorities with a new discretionary power to set up workplace parking licensing schemes, which can reduce congestion, improve air quality and reduce emissions. The regulations that enable local authorities to use those powers were laid before Parliament yesterday.

No one person or agency carries all the responsibility to make change happen. Transport demand derives from other factors; where people live, work, learn and access goods and services are all key to their need to travel. We need to use national and local government powers and responsibilities to reduce people’s need to travel by providing better local access to goods, services, leisure opportunities and social connections, as well as providing flexible and remote working approaches and more sustainable travel options for those who need to travel longer distances.

Scotland’s Climate Assembly identified, as one of its top five goals, the implementation of an integrated, accessible and affordable public transport system and improved local infrastructure throughout Scotland. The route map sets out the actions that we are taking, including the fair fares review, which will consider options for change against a background where the costs of car travel are declining and public transport costs are increasing. In short, we are already committed to finding ways to make alternative travel modes more attractive and supporting people to use the car less.

We want that work to be as inclusive as possible. We want to empower everyone to do what they can to reduce their car use and help tackle climate change, and we want to ensure that as many people as possible benefit from the individual and community-level impacts of their actions. However, we do not have control of all the levers that are needed to achieve that. Fuel duty and vehicle excise duty remain reserved to the United Kingdom Government, which has at least acknowledged that, as we transition away from fossil fuels, changes to our tax system will be required.

We will continue to press the UK Government for constructive dialogue on what it plans to replace those with. The best solution, of course, would be for the UK Government to scrap those duties and wholly devolve the powers to Scotland, so that we can design and deliver fiscal solutions that best meet Scotland’s needs and interests. In no part of the UK is the transport fiscal set-up credible.

That is why, alongside those efforts, we will commission research to explore equitable options for demand management to discourage car use, while encouraging fewer journeys to be taken by car and more journeys to be taken by public and active transport options. That includes pricing and the cost of motoring; at this stage, we cannot and should not rule anything out. Transport remains our biggest emitting sector, with cars responsible for most transport emissions. Reducing those emissions requires bold and radical action. The route map enables us to meet that challenge with a clear end point in sight.

Although there are simple changes that we can make, achieving such a significant shift for so many of us will not be easy. However, we know from previous successes such as the indoor smoking ban that it can be done. The prize is worth having: safer roads, reduced pollution, more space in neighbourhoods for other users and better physical and mental health. Getting this right is win-win-win-win.

We will consult publicly on the route map, kick-starting the critical wider national conversation that we need to have about car use. That conversation must become a crucial shared national endeavour through which everyone feels empowered to change their habits, comfortable that they have affordable and sustainable alternative options to use to get around, and confident that they know that their actions are benefiting their health and wellbeing as well as that of their family and community. In doing so, we will all play our part in helping Scotland to contribute to cutting emissions, limiting global warming to 1.5°C and tackling climate change.