Our Asks
To help achieve The One Billion Challenge, Greener Journeys is calling on government to promote more priority measures for buses and coaches. Setting targets for local authorities to deliver modal shift would be a welcome first step which will help incentivize action.
Park and ride schemes are also hugely generative of modal shift and the potential for more low cost schemes is enormous, particularly around our biggest cities.
Parking policy is a major factor in determining whether people take the bus or the car to travel to work or make shopping trips, and we need a consistent approach across the country. Integration of transport policy with land use planning is also essential to reduce car dependency and encourage people to switch to public transport.
Smarter choices can deliver significant benefits very cost effectively. In particular, we would like to see more incentives for organisations to adopt Green Travel Plans, more support for school travel plans and greater personalised travel planning.
Employees travelling to work by public transport may buy bus season tickets from their pre-tax income as part of a green travel plan, but HMRC’s rules mean that these tax-free tickets are quite restrictive. Greener Journeys believes that HMRC rules should be changed to enable employees to buy area network travelcards from their pre tax income under a green travel plan and use them in the evening and at weekends too.
Putting these measures in place will help Greener Journeys achieve in The ONE Billion Challenge, which will see a reduction of 2 million tonnes of CO2 - an additional 50% reduction in CO2 from domestic transport anticipated over the same period by current Government policies.