Transport Scotland

The emerging Transport Scotland (TS) Travel Plan is the UK's first Travel Plan developed solely from a carbon perspective. As such, it is an ideal case study to show how Travel Plans can be tailored to provide much needed information on carbon emissions and, importantly, drive targets and actions to reduce them.

Very early in the Travel Plan process it was agreed that the overarching Aspiration for the TS Travel Plan is to, 'measure, monitor and minimise the greenhouse gas emissions arising from travel by TS employees'.

It was also agreed that the Travel Plan would be underpinned by the ethos that, 'the greenest mile is the mile not travelled' and this was used to define a clear hierarchy of travel choices, with 'avoid travel altogether' as the preferred 'mode'.

In order to meet the Aspiration of the Travel Plan, and set meaningful targets for carbon reduction, a baseline, or 'carbon footprinting' exercise was undertaken to establish TS' Travel Carbon Footprint (TCF). This used commute information from an internal Travel Survey and accounting information on business travel expenditure to evaluate the journeys undertaken in the 2006-07 annual period and the resulting carbon emissions. Actions and measures to reduce carbon emissions were then defined.

As discussed above, travel from staff comprises just one part of the total TS carbon footprint. Other carbon emissions arise from energy use in TS buildings and from the actions TS undertakes through implementation of its policies, projects and plans. The TCF is therefore not all-inclusive, but it serves to show the savings and reductions that can be achieved through implementation of the Travel Plan.

Figures 1 and 2 below show the mode split of TS commute and the equivalent CO₂ emissions for each mode. This highlights the importance of a carbon footprinting approach to Travel Plans.

Figure 1 shows that TS employees are largely sustainable in their choice of modes of travel to and from work. Just 14% of employees currently drive to and from work, and, in conventional Travel Plan approaches, this would be seen as a good baseline with little scope for improvement.

However, further interrogation of the data and evaluation of the carbon consequences of the commuter journeys shows that car driver trips currently account for 40% of the commute carbon emissions. This is a reflection of the fact that car use is very energy inefficient when compared to public transport, and also a reflection of the fact that these individuals were commuting over a long distance on a daily basis.

Thus, one of the Travel Plan targets has been set to reduce the contribution of 'car driver' trips to the commute carbon emissions total, and actions have been defined to achieve this target. These include personalised journey planning with individuals to discuss travel options, flexible working and, if appropriate, relocation options.

Once the Travel Plan has been adopted and fully implemented, with monitoring on an annual basis, TS expects to be able to report significant financial savings on top of the CO₂ benefit. In addition, it is intended that TS will monitor annual sick days as well as 'well-being' surveys to establish staff opinion on key Travel Plan measures such as flexible working.

It is also worth acknowledging that TS expects to be able to report significant financial savings as a result of the Travel Plan. Carbon-focused Travel Plans save CO₂ and £!