Driving change: Building a sustainable transport network

In 2005 the Royal Academy of Engineering laid out its Transport 2050 strategy. The forward-thinking blueprint underpinned a route to create sustainable wealth across the UK while operating responsibly from an environmental point of view. It argued that transport infrastructure in the UK had not kept up with economic growth in the previous 50 years and cited that the UK was not only the worst in terms of public transport provision for people without cars but that no other western European nation had higher public transport fares. It also highlighted that the transport sector was the largest source of emissions for many of the serious pollutants, linking it as an increasingly significant contributor to ill health. 

The report said that road traffic, at the prevailing rate of growth in 2005, would increase by half by 2050 and that such growth would “aggravate” the two “most serious” impacts of the country’s transport system: congestion and global warming. It took a hard stance on the effects it could have on the planet and stated that the emissions produced made up for 28 per cent of the country’s total. 

The new vision, which incorporated land, air, and sea travel, identified the cost of travel as the most fundamental element that had to change and recommended moving “as rapidly as possible” to a system of true-cost charging, which would include the direct costs of providing, maintaining and enhancing the transport system, the indirect costs of congestion, pollution and accidents, and that most charges should relate to the distance travelled, with additional costs in the most congested parts of the network and where environmental impacts were most severe. The report argued that implementing a true-cost system would “change the pattern of transport use”.

However, in Scotland, almost two decades on from the publication of the strategy, transport accounts for 36 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, under the definition set out in the Climate Change Scotland Act, and, concerningly, 66 per cent of transport emissions were produced by road transport. 

And while there have been positive steps to encourage citizens onto public transport with initiatives such as free bus travel for under-22s, over the last 20 years, public transport costs have not only risen relative to the cost of driving, but considerably above the rate of inflation. 

Since those figures were released, the Scottish Government unveiled a new 20-year strategy in 2020 – the National Transport Strategy 2. It looks to herald in a sustainable, inclusive, safe, and accessible transport system that is healthier and more equitable. It hinges on encouraging people out of cars and onto buses, trains and to take up active travel, citing that over 75 per cent of total traffic volumes on Scottish roads and the majority of all journeys in Scotland are made by car.

The proposed solution to the country’s transport systems concerning carbon footprint is three pronged: active travel, decarbonising bus and rail travel, and enabling electric vehicles.

Active travel, which is walking, wheeling, and cycling, under the new strategy will become the most popular mode of short distance, everyday journeys. The Scottish Government estimates that this “essential” transition will help to reduce the kilometres travelled by cars by 20 per cent by 2030, and it has committed to spend £320m (or 10 per cent of the transport budget) on active travel by 2024-25 – increasing funding almost tenfold since 2017-18. 

Aside from the clear environmental and health benefits of active travel, the transition will also promote safer travel. There are currently over 1,600 miles of National Cycle Network routes in Scotland, including 702 miles of traffic-free routes, according to active transport charity Sustrans. But Scottish local authorities have been urged by charities such as Cycling UK to “create more safe cycle lanes” to encourage more people out of cars and into forms of active travel.

Dr Adrian Davis, an expert on active travel and an adviser to the Welsh Government on default 20 mile per hour speed limits, argues that the transition to active travel should be supported by 20 mile per hour speed limits in Scotland too. He says it is “important as part of the sustainable transport system of the next few decades” that both rail and bus can “thrive”, but that will only be possible if it “enables more people to choose active travel”. 

He points to cities like Bristol and Edinburgh that have successfully implemented measures such as 20 mile per hour speed limits, but argues such moves are a futile exercise without enforcement. “There are a lot of people still getting hit and injured, even in Edinburgh, with slower speed limits because there is no police enforcement,” he says.

Transport Scotland figures for 2021 suggest that roads and pavements are becoming safer for active travel, as pedestrian casualties decreased by 7 per cent and pedal cyclists by 18 per cent on the previous year’s statistics. 

As more people are being encouraged out of cars, particularly for shorter journeys, Davis also argues that there needs to be “more road space reallocation” for services like buses and trams to support better public transport links.

“If you look at good examples around the world where public transport thrives, what they have is strong parking policies,” he notes. “Vienna, Freiburg, and Gent are good examples. The latter has been in the news recently as half of its traffic is using city centre roads as routes through to somewhere else, so if you can cut that down then you can create a much more vibrant and economically attractive city centre.”  

In Edinburgh, for example, according to the Department for Transport, 2022 saw the third most miles travelled in the city in a calendar year since 1993 – and while there has been an overall decrease since 2016 in miles travelled by motor vehicles, the government body says the “overall decrease is entirely due to the decline in traffic levels observed during the pandemic”.  

As road travel has increased again in the period since, public transport passenger figures are still down 40 per cent on 2016-17. Davis suggests a way to encourage more people away from private transport is a “pull and push system”.

“You push people towards public and sustainable transport, and you pull them out of the car, while taking away space on roads for cars to make it more difficult for people to make trips that they don’t need to make, while leaving enough for people to make essential journeys by car and for vans making deliveries, for example,” he says.

“It is not in any way spiteful, it is just trying to make a system that is population-health friendly, rather than just designing transport systems for cars like we did from the 1950s as a political decision linked to the automotive industry’s power.”

As Scotland’s cities’ transport systems become more sustainable, Davis warns that the government “needs to be careful” that the focus is not just on the biggest urban areas. It is imperative that we consider smaller, more remote areas and “protect their centres as well”. He suggests that 20-minute neighbourhoods are a method of cutting out unnecessary journeys by car, or other motorised transport into larger city centres for amenities such as parks, shops, or a GP surgery - “the stuff you need on a weekly basis”.  

While 20-minute neighbourhoods could keep people living in smaller towns and villages from making unnecessary journeys, continuing to improve public transport is imperative, and there have been some positive steps by government this year, particularly, in the rail network. The East Kilbride line, which supports travel between the second-largest town in Scotland and Glasgow, received £140m of funding from the Scottish Government in September to dual and electrify the line and cut down the current 30-minute commute along the seven-mile route. The Barrhead to Glasgow line is expected to be fully electric by the end of 2023.

The funding is part of wider plan to decarbonise the Scottish rail network by 2035. However, there are still areas of the country, particularly more remote ones, that have seen little progress in the improvement of their rail services. Return to rail post-pandemic has also stalled in the more remote parts of the country. Figures for 2022, showed that passenger numbers on the Newtonmore line were down 29 per cent on pre-pandemic levels, while on the Dalwhinnie line they were down 39 per cent.

One of the biggest gaps in the rail network is in St Andrews – one of Scotland’s most popular tourist destinations and home to one of the country’s best universities. It has been without a train station since the late 1960s, and there are fewer than ten bus services that take passengers to the city. The lack of options and high levels of congestion paved the road for a car-sharing platform that allows residents to rent out their vehicles in an attempt to prevent more cars joining the already-congested road network. 

The concern for public transport does not end there. According to figures from the Traffic Commissioner this year, since the SNP came into government in 2007, 38 per cent of bus routes have been cut. Buses operated on 1,970 routes in 2022-23, down from 3,184 in 2006-07. 

And as the Scottish Government looks to decarbonise the majority of the remaining bus fleet by next year, there is a feeling from some experts that there are not enough services in more remote areas like the Highlands. 

Dr Christian Calvillo, a research fellow at the Centre for Energy Policy at the University of Strathclyde, says: “Using the Highlands as an example, the government can only ask the bus companies to operate a minimum service, but it is very minimum and is not enough for the people living there, and for many people that is their lifeline.”

Last month the government invested £5m through its community bus fund to provide support for rural bus services. It will be followed by secondary legislation later this year that will empower councils to enact bus franchising.

There is a criticism in Scotland that public transport is too expensive, especially when compared to fares in Europe. And if people are to be encouraged out of cars and onto trains and buses it must make sense from an economical perspective. This month the Scottish Government has begun a six-month pilot that will scrap peak train fares. Six busy morning commuter routes will trial the new all-day fares. The cost of a return fare between Edinburgh and Glasgow during the morning rush hour will fall from £28.90 to £14.90. 

While there are steps being taken in the first few years since the Scottish Government published its transport strategy, the issue of infrastructure needs to be addressed. Electric vehicles, which the government wants to replace petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, require charging points. However, figures from ChargePlace Scotland, show that from October 2022 to August 2023 only 169 charging points had been added to the network owned by the Scottish Government. 

As of June 2023, there are over 4,000 charging stations, according to the government, but this is a long way off the 30,000 that ministers previously cited as being required by 2030 to support electric vehicles on Scottish roads.

Calvillo says there are many infrastructural challenges to overcome in the electrification of transport, particularly in more challenging geographical areas and in an absence of enough skilled workers.

“The electricity infrastructure in the Highlands and Islands is more limited and older than other parts of Scotland,” he says. “It hasn’t really been upgraded much since the seventies and it was designed for people to use appliances at home, not for transport.”

He adds: “The reality is that you will need a lot of people to create the new infrastructure. We need more people installing charging points for electric vehicles. That is going to be challenging.

“We need to train a lot of people, and we need to do it quickly. But right now, there are not enough routes to do that. There are very limited apprenticeships available. We need thousands of apprentices rather than the 50 or so we see every year currently.” 

The Royal Academy of Engineering strategy argued that “no transport strategy can succeed without a skilled workforce to ensure its effective implementation”. Eighteen years on and three years into the Scottish Government’s long-term transport strategy it appears that the skilled workforce required to create a sustainable transport system is far from being realised and, in fact, many of the original issues first raised in 2005 remain.