Southern & Eastern Regional Assembly - Annual Conference

Fri 27 May 2011

Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Co Wicklow

James Nix

Irish Environmental Network PlanBetter

www.ien.iewww.planbetter.ie

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Smarter Travel: what’s it all about?

Starting with our pockets...

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The An Taisce Green Schools Travel Programme now covers around 150,000 pupils – or 650 schools, 307 of which joined the programme September 2010

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Steep fall in car use in participating schools

Figures from 2008/2009 show the numbers driven all the way to school dropped from 57% to 44% (a 13% mode share fall)

Replaced by increases in walking, up from 17.5% to 25% (a 7.5% increase), with the balance made up of higher shares for Park ‘n Stride and other mixed modes

Cycling did not win any of the car falloff at aggregate level (constant at 3% over the survey period) but...

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Cycling (Green Schools)• Cycling jumped to a modal share of almost 7% where

cycle training and cycle parking was provided (up from 2.5% to 6.7% in rural schools, and from 1% to 6.6% in urban schools – after training & parking)

• When asked, 87% of pupils want to travel by sustainable modes (cycle / walk / bus); cycling to school is the 1st choice of 50% of pupils

• Clearly, there is huge pent-up demand to cycle to school we are not meeting

Above sourced from 2008/09 Green Schools Travel report

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Challenging perceptions (Green Schools)

The most formidable barrier to walking and cycling appears to be misconception of distance: 40% of pupils say it is too far, but 76% of pupils live within 3km of their school!)

After distance (which is at 40%) the second highest reason for not walking or cycling to school is absence of permission; “not allowed” registered 15%

Above sourced from baseline research for Green Schools Travel 8

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Overweight & obesity in Ireland

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Graphs sourced from Chaos at the Crossroads

1986 – 2002

In primary schools walking lost ground to car

In secondary schools cycling collapsed, walking slipped, again with car gaining rapidly

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Focusing on pupils• It’s easier to change! • The data show younger people want to

change the way they go to school – but obviously it is not a situation they entirely control

• Leaving aside energy and emissions, change is chronically required for health reasons

• Ireland’s adult obesity rate (24%) is now higher than in 18 states in the US

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Pursuing the link to energy: compare cycling and biofuels

“60% of commutes by car are less than 10 km long. If half cycled to work instead, emissions would fall by 7%” - Richard Tol of the ESRI

Contrast cycling with biofuels where Tol notes that if we increased the mandatory blend from 3% to 10% (in energy terms) emissions would also fall by 7%, but here we have to “ignore all the evidence that biofuels are bad for the environment and bad for poor people”

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But biofuels don’t actually deliver aggregate emissions reductions

• First, there is no net CO2 saving. While "the emission of CO2 per gallon of fuel burned is lower than for fossil fuels, the CO2 emissions per mile are not“ - Gaffney & Marley (2009) Atmospheric Environment (43) 23 – 36

• Second, there are higher particulate matter (PM) emissions: "in general PM emissions are seen to increase with the use of biodiesel” – Gaffney & and Marley, from above

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Pursuing the link to energy: electric cars (EVs)

• If 10% of cars were all-electric, transport emissions would only fall by 2% (ESRI)

• Work done at UCC shows it may even be a smaller fall (the finding there was a 2% reduction in emissions from cars, as distinct from transport emissions)

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Conclusion on biofuels and EVs

• It’s doubtful if biofuels can deliver any aggregate emissions reduction at all

• EVs may be able to deliver a small reduction (in the region of 2%) but, as the figures show, in the overall bid to reduce emissions from transport their contribution is somewhat marginal

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Ireland’s car dominated citiesIn Dublin: - 56% commute by car

(52% drivers; 4% passengers)

- 21% public transport (14% bus; 7% heavy rail or tram)

- 17% walk or cycle (13% walk; 4% cycle)

Above Sourced from Census 2006

Good practice: - 30% by car

- 30% public transport

- 30 to 35% walk or cycle (e.g. Copenhagen, Freiburg, etc) 21

14% by bus and 7% by rail in Dublin• These figures, from Census 2006, are based on the

4 Dublin local authorities aggregated• There is some correlation with daily figures for

transport operators but data is poor because we are not counting private bus companies properly! Note also journeys beginning in Kildare, Meath, Wicklow will raise rail figures more than bus

- 350,000 daily Dublin Bus journeys (128m p.a.)- 165,000 daily rail journeys (90,000 a day on DART/

commuter rail and 75,000 on Luas)

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Four choices?

1. Metro North2. DART Underground3. Luas link 4. Rail spur off northern line to Dublin airportAnalysing them: 1. Metro North (too expensive) 2. DART Underground (still unaffordable) 3. Luas link (urban sterilisation effect: dead

streets) 4. Rail spur off northern line to Dublin airport

(would be slower than a coach or cab via port tunnel)

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The case for bus investment (option 5)• A programme of QBC-plus that has as its goal to

bring public transport usage above 30% in Dublin and above 15% in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford

• Necessary, affordable and deliverable within the lifetime of the government, i.e. by 2016, while providing health and well-being benefits

• With QBC-plus, city wide networks can be delivered using new bus technology (at a cost of €7.5m per km compared to €33m a km for tram)

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Nantes

• 800,000 pop. in metro area (285,000 the in city itself)

• In 2006 three light rail lines in place; value for money appraisal pointed to BRT for Line 4

• Line 4 is now carrying 30,000 passengers a day

• Peak time frequency increased to every 3 mins25

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Four ideas introduced

• Multi-point tolling

• Updating the cost-benefit analysis process

• Food emission labels

• Volunteer transport

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Multi-point tolling• We need consistent distance-based road charging • Background: hopelessly inconsistent tolling, e.g. 3

tolls Blanchardstown - Shannon (€5.60 for a car), but none from Dun Laoghaire to Rosslare. No apparent rationale. Toll diversion (Slane, Suir, etc)

• Charge 4 cent a km for all four-lane road, e.g. €10 for Cork / Dublin (French charges are 6 – 7 cents per km)

• Replace all existing toll booths and thereby end toll diversion, which is responsible for inflating demand for additional roads 49

Updating cost benefit analysis

• Health impacts ignored in transport projects

• Methodologies already exist to remedy this, e.g. World Health Organisation (2007)

• It’s a question of decision-makers in Ireland making the change

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Food emissions labelling• Food is labelled based on its CO2 emissions

performance within its class• Food emissions labelling adopted in Sweden• Consumers aided choosing within a food group -

but not between groups (e.g. fish v. meat) • Given transport emissions, domestic produce is

likely to perform well if sustainably produced • The Swedish Farmers Federation is on board as

are Swedish food companies• Methodology published in October 2010

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2009 Exports Imports

Vegetables 45,159

€103m

38,036

€66.5m

Tonnes

Value

Poultry/Poultry meat

38,642

€62m

53,383

€169m

Tonnes

Pigmeat 82,476

€142m

38,723

€102m

Tonnes

Frozen Vegetables

1,236

€1.6m

44,552

€43.4 m

Tonnes

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Volunteer transport

• Current rural transport initiative began as a pilot programme; it involves a high cost per passenger and calls for its expansion were rejected

• State could purchase vehicles and grant them to organisations where there is a proven capacity to deliver (Scottish examples, e.g. Inverness)

• Empowering communities to combat isolation 53

To recap and conclude• There is huge pent up demand to cycle to school

for which we are not catering• Only a significant shift to active commuting,

particularly cycling, offers large scale emissions savings (7% if half of those commuting less than 10km turn to cycling – how long to achieve it?)

• Comprehensive investment in bus networks right across Ireland represents 5th investment option

• Changes are needed to reform tolling, cost benefit analysis, perverse trade, and community/rural transport

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And let’s not forget the ancillary benefits

Thank you

Some people I’d like to thank –

Katrin, Miles, Justin and Tanya.

james@ien.ie

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