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SERA Transport Campaign Group: Policy Priorities

Policy Context

SERA’s transport campaign work is focused on the need to reduce the environmental impact of transport, particularly carbon emissions, and also the need to promote social inclusion, primarily through better public transport. Since coming to power, Labour have done much to advance this agenda, but more work is needed.

Car and Bus Use and Emissions

Car use continues to rise, bus use outside London continues to decline, and consequently carbon emissions from road transport are not decreasing.

• Car travel accounted for four-fifths of the total distance travelled in Britain in 1999/2001.
• Overall the distance travelled by car increased by 11 per cent during the 1990s.
• Bus patronage has declined, except in London, although at a slower rate in the 1990s than in the previous decade
• Despite improvements in fuel economy of new vehicles, CO₂ emissions from transport have remained static over the last 5 years.

Rail

Rail tells a better story —

• The total number of journeys made by rail has increased by 45 per cent since 1980 - from 1,332 million to 1,931 million.
• However more needs to be done to make rail services easier for low-income groups.

Freight

• The amount of goods moved by road has increased by 69 per cent since 1980, from 93 to 157 billion tonne kilometres. The movement of goods by road has stabilised since 1997. Road freight now accounts for 62 per cent of all goods moved, compared with 53 per cent in 1980.
• Goods moved by rail declined slightly in the mid-1990s, but has since risen to reach nearly 19 billion tonne kilometres. Rail freight now accounts for 7 per cent of all goods moved, compared with 10 per cent in 1980.

Transport: 30-year strategy

Recently the Transport White paper set out a broad strategy to improve our nation’s transport system.

• Transport 2000 described the White Paper as“two faced”:
  • It included a lot of warm words and support for the environment, particularly in terms of moving national road charging forward and support for Smart Choices programmes such as workplace and school travel plans, but
  • It was effectively calling a halt to tram schemes, encouraging local authorities to close railways and substitute buses, and crucially leaving the Government’s position on road building “muddy”
• While it is important for SERA to have its own clear sense of what would make a better, more equitable and greener transport system, it is also vital to operate within the political framework – i.e. campaigns must be winnable, as well as right.

Building on this vision, SERA has three campaign priority areas for transport. These are:

1. Accessible Public Transport and Smart Travel Choices

1.1 Access to Rail
Rail services in the UK are improving under New Labour. However decades of underinvestment will take many years to overcome, and more work is needed. British rail travellers pay some of the highest standard fares in the world. The fares structure has also become too complex and confusing, with a host of new restrictions on system-wide fares and a bewildering array of new fares that apply only to the trains of particular operators.
The Government should: Ensure that through-ticketing with other transport modes is maximised and work to bring the overall level of fares down. A national public transport smartcard should be introduced to allow single journeys to be made on rail, bus, tram and underground where possible throughout the country.

1.2 Promoting Cleaner, Affordable Buses
Better public transport is vital to get people out of their cars. However, outside London bus travel is in decline, and many buses are old, and highly polluting. In particular, deregulated bus market outside London make it hard to require clean buses on important routes, while the fuel duty rebate (Bus Service Operators Grant) disincentivises the purchase of more-efficient and cleaner alternative-fuel buses.
The Government should support cleaner, more affordable buses by helping Local Authorities outside London set up Quality Contracts, and by reforming Bus Service Operators grant to a passenger/kilometer basis.

1.3 Smart Measures: Workplace Travel Plans
The large scale application of a range of ‘smart’ measures that include workplace travel planning alongside other types of initiatives (such as individualised marketing, public transport information and marketing. teleworking, school travel planning and travel awareness campaigns) could reduce peak period urban traffic by 21% and non-urban peak period traffic by 14%.
The Government should introduce more incentives for employers to introduce Workplace Travel Plans- e.g. ECAs for bikes and buses used for commuting; enhanced rate of Industrial Building Allowance for travel plan building work (e.g. less car parking) and Tax Credits to help pay to introduce Travel Plans (e.g. employing staff to develop one).

2. Cleaner, Lower-Carbon Cars

As well as reducing car use, it is also vitally important to make it cheaper to buy and run cleaner, lower-carbon cars, and to charge more for more polluting vehicles. At the same time it is vital to ensure that the auto industry plays its part buy producing more efficient, cleaner vehicles.

2.1 Car Tax: Making the Polluter Pay
New Labour has introduced arguably the most progressive taxation regime for cars in the world, by reforming both Company Car Tax and Vehicle Excise Duty to be based on carbon emissions. However, both taxes should be refined to make them more environmentally effective: VED is currently too cheap to dissuade people from buying a gas-guzzler, while the miminum CCT band is frozen till 2007.
Government should improve car tax by increasing the differentials between VED bands to 150, and gradually reducing the minimum CCT band to 100gCO₂ by 2011/12.

2.2 Fuel Tax: Reintroduce the Escalator
While the price of oil has increased recently, in fact driving has actually got cheaper – unlike bus and rail travel, both of which have become more expensive. Gradually increasing fuel duty provides a major incentive for more efficient, lower-carbon vehicles.
Government should re-introduce the fuel duty escalator.

2.3: Future Steps: Road User Charging
A lot has been made of Government plans to charge drivers by the mile, rather then charging them an annual fee to own a car. However it is unlikely that a road-user charging scheme for all UK cars could be implemented before 2014, and it is important that Government does all it can with the existing policies at its disposal now. Also, it is vital that road user charging scheme makes high-polluting cars pay more than less-polluting ones.
Government should, in any future national user charging scheme, charge more per mile for gas-guzzlers, and less per mile for low-carbon cars.

3. Aviation: Tackling the Toughest Transport Issue

Aviation has become the most difficult environmental issue in this Parliamentary term for New Labour. On the one hand, environmentalists are calling for aviation to pay the cost of its’ pollution. On the other hand, many New Labour MPs and UK business interests are calling for expansion of air travel. Particularly difficult to handle as been the argument that cheap air travel is an important tool to tackle social exclusion. SERA believes that aviation must start paying its way, and that the social exclusion argument is a red herring.

1.1 International Efforts to Cut Aviation Pollution
It is notoriously hard to make progress on Aviation emissions at the international level, and the best hopes lie at a European level. However we should not just give up the international process.
Government should push for Aviation to be included in the European Emissions Trading Scheme as soon as possible, and should push for progress to be made on issues such as fuel tax for kerosene through all international channels, including ICAO.

1.2 Domestic Action on Aviation
The UK should lead the way on Aviation policy, using both existing and new policy measures to make Aviation pay its way.
Government should introduce a domestic emissions charge on all domestic flights. Government should also reform Air Passenger Duty to a percentage charge levied on the ticket price based on the distance traveled.