The Government and transport professionals are wrong to claim that it is not desirable or cost-effective to reduce the demand for travel, according to fresh academic research.
Transport planners at the Robert Gordon University claim the Government is placing too much emphasis on expensive technological solutions for tackling climate change and downplaying cheaper measures to cut car journeys.
The researchers found models that estimate how the UK can reach its ambitious target to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050 assume that travel growth will continue.
‘The expectation that transport will be one of the fastest growing users of energy leads to a conclusion that changing travel behaviour is too difficult,’ the academics conclude.
The assumption ‘self-evidently’ pushes up the cost of schemes to reduce car trips. However, the Government’s focus on encouraging new vehicles and fuels to reduce transport emissions would not work on its own, if, as was likely, prices of vehicles and fuel come down.
‘Greater fuel efficiency would make it more affordable for car owners to drive more, or trade up to a bigger vehicle, counteracting the carbon reductions,’ the researchers claim, in work commissioned by environmental groups.
The researchers found that little work had been done with regard to the likely effect of measures to increase the use of public transport on carbon emissions.
Jason Torrance, spokesman for the Campaign for Better Transport, said: ‘The Government must tackle climate change by providing people with real travel choices and better information. Technology alone will not tackle climate change.’
The Campaign attacked the County Surveyors’ Society for asserting that transport planners should not constrain travel opportunities, in its recent report Travel is Good (Surveyor, 14 February 2008).
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