7 October 2009
NEWS RELEASE: Less traffic equals smarter working
New briefing shows how productivity goes up when car usage goes down.
Transform Scotland [1] today (Wednesday 7th) launched its new briefing paper, 'Less Traffic: How Scotland would benefit from Road Traffic Reduction' [2], outlining the many benefits of reduced traffic levels, and how this can be achieved through a variety of relatively inexpensive interventions.
The paper, which is supported by BT Scotland, identifies a number of activities key to achieving reduced traffic levels, including 'conferencing', car sharing and car clubs. It also calls for greater investment into active forms of transport.
Paul Tetlaw, Chair of Transform Scotland, said:
"Road traffic reduction is the most vital component of a sustainable transport strategy. Without policies, programmes and projects to cut traffic levels, there is little or no prospect of achieving crucial targets for reducing climate change emissions or creating a productive and just society.
"Transform Scotland is delighted to be working with organisations such as BT Scotland to evidence the vast financial and time savings offered by interventions such conferencing - audio, video and teleprescencing. Not only do these enable organisations from all sectors to reduce their need to travel, but they also generate massive productivity benefits.
"The most efficient use of the road network is through increasing car occupancy. Car sharing and car clubs have proven to be very successful at achieving an increase in car occupancy both here in Scotland as well as throughout Europe. And at the same time as increasing occupancy, they have also reduced car usage. If we increased car occupancy by 50%, we would see one third less traffic on the roads [3].
Brendan Dick, Director of BT Scotland [4], said:
"Use of today's advances in modern technology has the potential to become one of the greatest carbon-busters of all. It makes no sense to be sitting in traffic jams when people can be online letting the keyboard take the strain.
"Emission reductions will only become a reality when society wakens up to the potential of alternatives at our finger-tips. Scotland already benefits from having one of the highest rates of broadband availability of any country in the world".
ENDS
Notes to Editors
[1] Transform Scotland is the national sustainable transport alliance, bringing together rail, bus and shipping operators, local authorities, national environment and conservation groups, businesses and local transport groups - see <http://www.transformscotland.org.uk/our-members.aspx> for details.
[2] Full briefing paper, 'Less Traffic: How Scotland would benefit from Road Traffic Reduction' can be found at: <http://www.transformscotland.org.uk/GetFile.aspx?ItemId=203>.
[3] A small rise in car occupancy can have a significant impact - raising occupancy by just 10% (to an average of 1.74) would reduce traffic on our roads by 9%. And an occupancy increase of 50% would result in a 33% drop in traffic. See Liftshare news release highlighting research by the Liberal Democrats - <http://www.liftshare.com/news.asp?ns=17&tb=g>.
Average car occupancy in the UK has dropped from 2.0 in the early 1960s to only 1.58 in 2006. This includes 60% of cars being single occupancy, rising to 85% when considering just commuting and business travel car trips. See Department for Transport (2009) Transport Trends: 2008 Edition. - <http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/trends/current/transporttrends2008>
[4] BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to our customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.
In the year ended March 31, 2009, BT Group's revenue was £21,390 million.
British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.
For more information, visit <http://www.bt.com/aboutbt>
END OF NEWS RELEASE