Seven local authority areas are taking forward the wide-ranging initiatives through the Scottish Government’s Smarter Choices, Smarter Places (SCSP) scheme, which is supported by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA).
The projects — based in Dundee, Glasgow’s East End, Falkirk, Dumfries, East Renfrewshire, East Dunbartonshire and Orkney — will use £15 million of funding to promote greener travel with a focus on improving physical activity levels and reducing carbon emissions.
Each project will introduce a raft of localised measures, including large and small-scale infrastructure improvements, personalised travel planning, enhanced public transport links, free trial bus and rail passes, car sharing schemes and the development of better walking and cycling routes.
Information from 12,000 travel diaries, 4,000 phone interviews and a range of other local and national data will provide a picture of public attitudes and current travel behaviour as SCSP rolls out.
Initial qualitative baseline research carried out in the seven communities has shown there is support for local initiatives while further monitoring, to be carried out between 2010 and 2012, will establish the impacts and effectiveness of the £15 million investment across the projects.
The success of three similar “sustainable travel demonstration towns” in Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester — which were funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) and ran between 2004 and 2008 — has proven the value of establishing sustainable travel choices.
The £10-million DfT scheme utilised a variety of simple measures to affect behavioural change and produce a marked increase in sustainable travel use. It resulted in a 9 per cent reduction in car use across the three towns, equating to nearly 53 million miles of car travel taken off their roads and annual savings of more than 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Additionally, levels of walking increased by more than 10 per cent in each location while bus use grew by more than a third in Peterborough and a fifth in Worcester.
There was a 12 per cent increase in cycling in Peterborough and a 19 per cent increase in Worcester, while Darlington, which received further Government cash to improve facilities for cyclists, saw levels of cycling more than double over the same period.
The seven new SCSP projects are expected to produce similar or better results within their communities, and act as a benchmark for Scotland as a whole by showcasing examples of best practice.
“Persuading people out of their cars and onto more sustainable forms of travel such as trains, buses, walking and cycling is fundamental to changing Scotland’s travel habits for the better,” said Stewart Stevenson, Scotland’s Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change. “Initiatives such as those being taken forward through Smarter Choices, Smarter Places will help to promote healthier, cheaper, safer and greener travel choices, allowing more people to enjoy the benefits of increased physical activity while reducing their carbon footprint.”
Stevenson added, “Similar schemes, like those in Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester, have delivered impressive results, transforming the travel behaviour of thousands of their residents and this is what we want to achieve. Our projects could result in a catalyst for change right across Scotland.”
The Department for Transport (DfT) had asked each region of the UK to submit a work programme of studies as part of the “Delivering a Sustainable Transport System” exercise to examine how economic growth can be achieved at the same time as tackling climate change.
The North East is to receive up to £2 million over the next two years to fund the research into transport’s role in relation to the region’s economy and competitiveness, health, quality of life, the natural environment and climate change.
As national transport investment priorities to 2014 are largely set, the Sustainable Transport System consultation is asking regions to identify those areas of transport infrastructure that they want to examine in order to feed into Government’s investment plans beyond that date.
The North East’s submission has been led by One North East and the Association of North East Councils (ANEC) with input from the business community, transport operators and environmental groups. The formal submission was signed off by the One North East Board and the Leaders’ Board of 12 local authorities.
“The North East is already pioneering new developments in areas such as electric vehicles and the infrastructure needed to support it,” said Margaret Fay, chairman of One North East. “This research will allow us to assess such things as the future impact of these new technologies and importantly build the evidence base needed to secure future investment. In addition, the work programme will make a significant contribution to the development of the new regional strategy for the North East.”
“Transport is fundamentally linked to economic development and in providing quick and easy access to jobs and marketplaces, which has even greater importance in the current economic climate,” added Cllr. Mick Henry, Chair of the Association of North East Councils.
When you think Aston Martin you think James Bond, fast cars and big polluting engines. But in the near future, you may have to think again.
Aston Martin has released some images of its new “Cygnet” concept car, which is essentially Toyota’s smart iQ dressed up in its best glad rags.
The £20,000 city car has been engineered by Aston Martin — with some help from Toyota — to give the firm’s supercar owners something to take into the city, as up to 30 per cent already own a small town run-around such as a Smart Car.
Greenbang spoke to Aston Martin’s product communications manager Matthew Clarke, who told us, “The Cygnet was not the result of a motivation to lower Aston Martin’s CO2 emissions; it was to offer our customers an alternative.”
However, the Cygnet does reduce overall carbon emissions, largely by replacing the larger V12 engine with a tiny Toyota 1.3-litre four-cylinder engine.
“Now is the right time for Aston Martin to take this first bold step to embark on this special project — made possible with the support of an organisation of Toyota’s stature and capability and the intelligent design and perfect city car package of the iQ,” said Ulrich Bez, Aston Martin’s Chief Executive.
The partnership between Aston Martin and Toyota started in 2007 when both companies were testing at the Nurburgring in Germany.
“Dr Ulrich Bez and Toyota’s Akio Toyoda think very alike and have created a great friendship which led to this project at the beginning of 2009,” Clarke said.
There’s one catch, however: The Cygnet will be available for sale only to previous owners of Aston Martins or to new buyers purchasing any of the other cars from the British marque.
That means the rest of us who thought we could show off to our friends down the pub and say we had an Aston can’t.
Still, if we can’t buy, we might soon at least look. The bold new car could be unveiled as early as the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, although there are no concrete plans yet set in place.
The report was commissioned jointly by the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) and the Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement in the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). The study was prepared by JMP Consultants.
“Travel is widely recognised as one of the most difficult areas from which to reduce carbon emissions and embed sustainable practice, but government should not view sustainable operations and travel as an insurmountable challenge,” writes Gordon Baker, chairman of JMP Consultants, in the foreword to the report. “To achieve sustainable operations and travel government needs to fully understand its sphere of influence and the impacts of its operations, policies and programmes. This will require a conceptual shift in the way services are delivered to citizens and the way travel is managed. If government tinkers around the edge this will result in only one thing — more of what we have now.”
The first step government needs to take, the report finds, is to “expand its sphere of influence from administrative vehicles to consider all modes of business travel, employee commuting, visitor travel and working practices. This
will enable government to understand the relationship that exists between travel and its operations, policies and programmes.”
Key to developing sustainable travel practices, the report adds, is better leadership and communication:
“There appears to be a policy vacuum with a lack of leadership and management of sustainable travel in government’s own operations. As a result we found public sector officials and suppliers were unsure of government’s sustainability policy or travel targets.”
One way to address that, the report states, is for each department to appoint a mobility communications manager.
Other recommendations include:
Government should prioritise action and identify where interventions in the travel category could deliver the greatest sustainability gains;
Government should examine how it can influence the behaviour of staff travelling on business or the commute; and
Government should take action now through “quick wins” and “first steps” to evidence the benefits of sustainable operations and travel.
“The issues of climate change and the United Kingdom’s obesity epidemic pose threats to the economy, our society and quality of life,” Baker states in the foreword. “The evidence is now clear and there is no room for complacency.
Government, business and citizens all have a part to play in delivering solutions.”
The Scottish Government has published a new consultation on the use of low-carbon vehicles that calls for a widened use of electric vehicles.
The consultation proposes twin targets:
100 per cent use of low-carbon vehicles by public sector vehicles by 2020;
95 per cent of all new vehicles to be low-carbon in 2020.
It also seeks to encourage widespread adoption of low-carbon vehicles across Scotland.
“Government must back up its world-leading climate change targets with action and this consultation does just that,” said Climate Change Minister Stewart Stevenson. “Emissions from transport have been increasing in recent years and a major uptake of low-carbon vehicle technologies is required to reverse this trend.”
He added, “We all have a role to play in tackling climate change but the public sector must be seen to set the standard. This 2020 target will not only ensure that the public sector is stepping up to the plate on its transport emissions but also help create a market that can drive further development of low-carbon technology.
“Scottish companies are already leading the way in the development of low-carbon vehicles,” Stevenson continued. “In these challenging economic times we need to play to our strengths and take advantage of the opportunities in developing the sustainable low-carbon economy of the future.”
Scania has sold 85 ethanol-powered articulated buses to Busslink, operator of bus services for Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL), the regional public transport company in the Swedish capital.
“A continued commitment to ethanol power is consistent with SL’s decision to buy only buses that operate on renewable fuels starting in 2010,” says Leif Nyström, who is in charge of bus and coach sales at Scania’s Swedish distributor, Scania Sverige AB.
The order from Busslink is Scania Sverige’s largest single bus transaction in the Swedish market since 2004. Scania’s bus sales in Sweden began 2009 very strongly, and some 100 such vehicles have been registered so far this year.
Stockholm already boasts the world’s largest fleet of ethanol buses providing service in the central areas of the city. The 85 buses for Busslink will go into service on routes supplied from depots in the northern and southern suburbs of Stockholm. Forty of the buses are specifically designed for urban traffic while the others are adapted for regional service. Deliveries will begin this autumn and will be completed during the spring of 2010.
Scania has more than 20 years of experience with ethanol buses in practical operation. The company has delivered 600 such buses, about 500 of them to Swedish cities. Internationally, there is now growing interest in ethanol-operated vehicles. In recent years, Scania has also delivered ethanol buses for commercial service in Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Norway and elsewhere.
Ethanol accounts for around 90 per cent of renewable vehicle fuels available today. Compared to a conventional diesel engine, ethanol-powered vehicles can reduce fossil carbon dioxide emissions by up to 90 per cent.
Four companies have been selected to begin supplying low-carbon and all-electric vans to some public-sector organisations starting later this year.
Ashwoods, Allied Vehicles, Smith Electric Vehicles and Modec will initially supply the first 100 - 150 vans for use across the country. The programme is part of a £20 million Department for Transport scheme to use public sector procurement to help demonstrate the potential of new technologies for decarbonising road transport.
The vans will be monitored closely to assess their carbon reduction potential in real-world conditions. If initial trials prove successful, the Government could offer financial support for further larger vehicle procurements in a second phase of the programme.
“Greener cars tend to grab all the headlines but emissions from vans have risen by around 40 per cent since 1990,” said Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis. “This is something we need to address as part of our carbon reduction strategy for transport.”
He continued, “Electric and lower carbon vans have the potential to significantly reduce emissions so it is important that we test these new technologies in real-world conditions. This new DfT programme enables the public sector to lead by example and I am delighted to see that a number of emerging UK companies have been successful in securing these contracts.”
The vans will be used by six local authority groups and six large public fleets:
Liverpool City Council
Leeds City Council
Glasgow City Council
Newcastle & Gateshead City Council
Coventry Low Carbon Fleet Partnership
Consortium of Central London councils
Government Car & Despatch Agency
Environment Agency
HM Revenue & Customs
Royal Mail
Transport for London
Metropolitan Police
The initial trials will last a minimum of three years, and the programme as a whole will be managed for DfT by Cenex, the UK Centre of Excellence for Low Carbon Vehicle & Fuel Cell Technologies. The DfT programme is part of a wider Government strategy to position the UK as a leading centre for the development, demonstration and early adoption of lower carbon vehicles.
Together with yesterday’s announcement of the winners of the Technology Strategy Board’s ultra-low carbon vehicle demonstration competition, close to 500 additional innovative low and ultra low carbon vehicles will be in operation across the UK within the next year.
Eight new low-carbon vehicle projects have been selected to run real-life trials supported by £25 million in Government funding, Science Minister Lord Drayson and Transport Secretary Lord Adonis announced today.
The project — the largest of its kind to date — is aimed at accelerating the availability of innovative low-carbon cars to consumers. The successful bids bring together consortia of car manufacturers, power companies, RDAs, councils and academic institutions to operate trials in eight locations across the UK.
“Low carbon doesn’t mean low performance,” Lord Drayson said. “Modern electric cars offer power and bucket loads of torque.”
He added, “Today’s announcement signals our intent to reduce our dependence on petrol- and diesel-based engines, and determine the best practical alternatives.”
“We want Britain to be at the forefront of ultra-low carbon automotive technology, blazing a trail for environmentally friendly transportation,” said Adonis. “Central to our plans is the stimulation of demand for low-carbon cars through projects like this to test the technology and give motorists the opportunity to feedback the information needed to make greener motoring a reality.”
Adonis continued, “Our aim is for ultra-low carbon vehicles to be an everyday feature of life on Britain’s roads in less than five years. This is a challenging target and there is still a long way to go. However, if we continuing to work closely with motorists and the industry with initiatives like the demonstrations project, I believe it is achievable.”
Some 340 vehicles will begin trials on UK roads within the next six to eighteen months; most will be electric, with a small number being plug-in petrol/electric hybrids. Many of the electric cars will be recharged via plug-ins around cities across Britain, as well as at home.
The winning consortia include:
The West Midlands consortium (CABLED, short for Coventry and Birmingham Low Emission Demonstrators), which is made up of 13 organisations and led by Arup;
Electric Vehicle Accelerated Development in the North East (EVADINE), which consists of Nissan, Smith Electric Vehicles in partnership with LTI, AVID Vehicles, Liberty Electric Cars, Newcastle University and One North East;
Ford Focus Battery Electric Vehicle, a consortium of Ford, Scottish and Southern Energy and Strathclyde University;
London South East Bid, whose partners include EDF Energy, the Greater London Authority, Elektromotive and the Westminster City Council;
MINI E Research Project, which includes the BMW Group, Scottish and Southern Energy and Oxford Brookes University’s Sustainable Vehicle Engineering Centre;
The Allied Vehicles Project, whose partners are Allied Vehicles, the Glasgow City Council, ScottishPower, Axeon and Strathclyde University;
PHV, a joint venture of Toyota and EDF Energy; and
EEMS Accelerate, led by energy, climate change and data management consultancy AEA.
How can we make the UK’s transport system more resistant to climate change, and what will it look like in 2050?
Those are the questions being explored by FUTURENET, a four-year, £1.5 million research project directed by a consortium of UK universities.
Academics at the University of Nottingham’s Institute for Science and Society (ISS), for example, will examine the future shape of demand for transport. For example, how will climate change affect the way we travel, and how will this affect the assumptions currently being made by planners? And if European holiday patterns shift so that large numbers of tourists from Germany or the Nordic countries come to the south of England instead of travelling to the Mediterranean, could our transport infrastructure cope?
“We need to think about why people travel,” said Robert Dingwall, director of ISS. “At the moment, research and planning mostly looks at transport from an economic perspective, assuming that it is only important for getting people to work or moving goods around — making mobility very sensitive to cost.”
He continued, “But we suspect that people also travel to maintain social relationships with family and friends, as well as for leisure purposes. This may be less sensitive to cost, while bringing important benefits in social solidarity and mutual aid that are not captured by conventional economic thinking. For example, do we want to make it more difficult for adult children to visit ageing parents if the consequence is greater dependence on local authority care?”
Unlike other projects that examine the impact of transport on climate change, FUTURENET will look at how climate change will require transport systems to adapt.
The FUTURENET consortium is led by the University of Birmingham. Other members include Loughborough University and the British Geological Survey. Network Rail and the Highways Agency are also involved. The project is jointly funded by the Engineering and Physical Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council as part of the “Adaptation and Resilience to a Changing Climate” programme.
AeroLogic was created to provide efficient air transport services on the Europe-Asia trade lane, which is expected to grow by about 5 per cent a year over the mid term. The airline will initially serve the express routes Leipzig - Bahrain - Singapore - Delhi - Leipzig on weekdays and the cargo routes Leipzig - Tashkent - Hong Kong - Tashkent - Leipzig on weekends. By 2010, the airline will gradually expand the network to offer new direct connections to most of Asia’s major metropolitan areas.
AeroLogic will operate with eight new leased B777F freighters, the first four of which are expected to be delivered this year. The aircraft feature advanced fuel-saving and environmental-friendly engine and wing technology, with a maximum payload capacity of 103 tonnes and a range of over 9000 kilometres.
“The B777F is regarded as the most environmentally-friendly freighter, because this aircraft type sets itself apart with its low fuel consumption and a low noise level in comparison with other aircraft of this size,” said Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa Cargo. “It is also the most modern and efficient aircraft currently available for long-haul intercontinental freight flights.”
Local authorities across Scotland have launched a three-year programme that aims to encourage people to cut their car use in favour of more active and sustainable forms of transport.
Partners in the North East have responded to a Government consultation on the region’s 
When you think Aston Martin you think James Bond, fast cars and big polluting engines. But in the near future, you may have to think again.
How can Government make its travel practices more sustainable? A range of suggestions — from “quick wins” to longer-term strategies — are offered in a new report, 
The Scottish Government has published a new consultation on the use of low-carbon vehicles that calls for a 
Scania has sold 
Four companies have been selected to begin supplying 
Eight new low-carbon vehicle projects
How can we make the UK’s transport system more resistant to climate change, and what will it look like in 2050?
AeroLogic,