Restarting the engine: the future of transport in a post-pandemic Scotland

“It’s pretty clear a pandemic is the most significant disruption to existing patterns of transport that we’ve had in the modern era – by quite some margin,” Professor Iain Docherty, one of the country’s leading transport academics, tells Holyrood. 

It’s the first thing the Dean of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Stirling says, as we sit down for a virtual chat and consider how transport in Scotland has been turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic.  

In an address in the Scottish Parliament in March last year, the First Minister said the country was on the “cusp of a rapid escalation in the spread of COVID-19”. Nicola Sturgeon advised people to reduce social contact, avoid crowded places and work from home, adding that they should use public transport as little as possible, a message which remains today.

“Where possible you should consider walking, wheeling or cycling, if you can, to reduce pressure on the road network and on public transport, where capacity will be limited,” guidance on the Scottish Government’s website says. In addition, we have seen travel bans introduced, preventing those who live in specific levels of lockdown – unless they have an essential reason – from leaving their local authority. The aim has been to reduce movement and, in turn, prevent the spread of the virus.

It has changed the complexion of the transport sector – the image of people piling on to a train or bus at rush hour has become a memory. Ralph Roberts, the managing director of McGill’s Buses, says demand dropped to 12 per cent at the peak of the pandemic in April last year. It increased to just over 60 per cent in August as the lockdown eased in the summer but since Christmas, with most of the country back under tightened restrictions, it’s been between 20 and 30 per cent. 

“The government have kept the industry alive,” Roberts says. “This is a big employer but it’s the job it does, so the government have seen the bus industry as crucial, trains as well and ferries, they’ve seen public transport as crucial to keeping people around the country mobile during the pandemic. 

“That’s one of the things about a society… The ability for people to be mobile in terms of getting to work, getting to the shops, getting to the doctors, getting to education or whatever it happens to be.

“The government have effectively been negotiating with us on the level of service we need to put out there, the level of capacity we need, against that level of demand. And where there’s a gap between the revenue and your cost, they’ve made it up to break-even point in order to keep us afloat.”

So, as Docherty acknowledges in our conversation, it is evident the level of disruption the virus has caused in the transport sector is significant. But there have also been lessons learned during the pandemic, which will prove vital as the industry recovers post-COVID and refocuses from survival to a climate emergency that hasn’t gone away. 

There needs to be a two-pronged approach in reducing emissions from the sector, according to the experts, consisting of a focus on short-term actions and medium to longer-term proposals. 

The situation is stark, but encouragement can be taken from the ability people have shown to adapt during the pandemic. The disruption has caused significant behavioural change – more of us than ever are working from home, making Zoom calls instead of travelling to meet in person and, as a result, many of us have cars lying unused in the driveway. The situation has shown people can change habits and adjust in the face of huge interruption to their everyday lives. 

“Lots of people have had to change what they do very significantly, which shows there is potential to do it the rest of time,” Docherty says.

“There’s a growing realisation among many people now that we’re not going to go back to what normal used to be, for a whole set of reasons – partly because of the economic shock that’ll happen once pandemic support unwinds – but also because we’ve got very used to using different tools and doing lots of jobs in different ways now, so we won’t go back to doing exactly what we did before.”

But why is this important? Simply put, it’s a chance to start again. The Scottish Government has a target of net-zero emissions by 2045, which may seem in the distant future, but crucially it has an interim target of a 75 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – less than a decade away. 

Docherty and two professors at the University of Leeds, Greg Marsden and Jillian Anable, submitted a paper on transport to the Scottish Government Advisory Group on Economic Recovery in the summer. In it, they asserted: “Policy attention has been focused on the public health emergency, and now increasingly the unprecedented economic shock resulting from COVID-19. 

“But the imperative to put in place measures to achieve decarbonisation and meet Paris Accord obligations remains, as do the associated uncomfortable truths, most importantly that electrification of the vehicle fleet is not enough. We need to travel less in future.”

This is a chance to “enact radical change”, the experts say in the paper, highlighting key issues for transport policymakers in Scotland, including the need to cut car travel, the importance of continued implementation of active travel infrastructure and an understanding of the potential of initiatives such as the 20-minute neighbourhood – the idea that most of people’s needs should be met by a short walk there and back. 

Docherty says: “This is the only big reset opportunity we’ve got in the timeline we’ve told ourselves we need to meet to achieve net zero, so we have to do it.”

The first annual delivery plan for Scotland’s new National Transport Strategy for the next two decades was published in December. It has four priorities: reduce inequalities, take climate action, help deliver inclusive economic growth and improve health and wellbeing. 

In the ministerial foreword, transport secretary Michael Matheson acknowledges the disruption COVID has caused in the sector. “The coronavirus outbreak and the necessary government response has had a significant impact on travel demand and behaviour,” he writes. “It has also had a profound impact on individuals’ lives and has exacerbated inequalities. The use of public transport in particular has fallen dramatically.” 

The government wants a green recovery from the pandemic, a return to encouraging people back on to public transport when it is safe to do so and interventions that will reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030. In the strategy, Matheson reemphasises the need for action in reaching net zero by 2045. He adds: “Transport’s role in helping to deliver this is crucial, as Scotland’s biggest emitting sector, to support the move to low and zero carbon transport. 

“As part of the green recovery, we will support people to make active travel choices, for instance, making permanent, where appropriate, some of the active travel infrastructure introduced during the COVID-19 outbreak.”

Rethinking transport is set to be a key theme in the country’s recovery from the pandemic. Innovative mass transit proposals have been on the agenda and more concrete plans have surfaced in recent weeks. 

In Aberdeen, a prioritised, high-frequency tram-like network has been mooted by the North East of Scotland Transport Partnership. The regional transport partnership envisages a system called the Aberdeen Rapid Transit, which would have four key routes linking the airport and city’s exhibition centre in the north to Portlethen in the south, and Bridge of Don to Kingswells and Westhill.  

Equally, a Glasgow Metro plan – focusing on the city and its immediate surrounding – has taken a “significant step forward”, according to the city’s council leader Susan Aitken. The project may include one or more of a bus rapid transit, tram, light rail or metro rail. 

Meanwhile in Edinburgh, a blueprint has been set out for an enhanced level of public transport provision that would integrate with the current bus, tram and heavy rail networks. The initial focus is on delivering mass transit connectivity from the north of the city at Granton, through the city centre to the south/east extremities of the city boundary. 

These projects are considered important steps in the right direction, but Christian Wolmar, a transport commentator, stresses they need to be combined with continued short-term actions.

He tells Holyrood: “The problem is these ideas are 10 years away and you need a more immediate approach. You need politicians to get up and say… ‘actually we have to have a shift away from cars’. We love our cars, they’re very useful, but we have to have a conscious movement away from them.

“You need both the short-term and the long-term… You need the micro and the macro together. You need to look at what will attract people out of their cars.”

There is potential in Scotland to make serious progress and quickly, as was shown by the work completed through the Spaces for People initiative, which offered funding and support to local authorities and statutory bodies to make it safer for people to walk, cycle or wheel during the pandemic. This is just one example of what can be achieved in the short-term and Wolmar believes more can be done in certain built-up areas. “If you have big urban centres, like Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee or Aberdeen or wherever, I think you can do a lot,” he adds. 

“You can improve the bus services very quickly, you can create low traffic neighbourhoods, you can create pop-up cycle lanes. We’ve shown this. Some of the pop-up cycle lanes have been pushed in very quickly, they’re not always perfect but they do make a difference.”

It’s a sentiment that is echoed by Docherty, who adds: “There’s lots of things we can do to help that are technically really easy, things like school streets and bus priority. All that requires is some paint and some regulations.”

It may be difficult to predict exactly what Scotland’s transport network will look like in the next 15 to 20 years and how many mass transit projects will come to fruition. However, there is a growing consensus on how the future should look and fundamentally it includes a concerted effort to cut car use and increase active travel. 

Docherty says: “There’s a thing called the sustainable transport hierarchy, which the Scottish Government uses in its policy documents, and that starts off with active travel. Walking and cycling is at the top as the most beneficial, both to the environment but also to individuals… and then public transport, and then private vehicles at the bottom. 

“The big challenge is that we actually have to make that happen rather than talk about it. So, the challenge is as it always has been. We have to use our cars less… We have to do without roughly a quarter or a third of our cars in the future if we’re going to get to net zero – even if they’re all electric – so if we’re going to do that, we have to turn that hierarchy into reality. We all have to walk and cycle more, we all have to use public transport more and cars a bit less.”