Briefing Paper: An Introduction to Surface Transport Emissions with a Brighton and Hove perspective
An Introduction to Surface Transport Emissions with a Brighton and Hove Perspective
Guest post by Rob Shepherd
Key points:
Transport planning presents a complex challenge in Brighton and Hove, with multiple objectives other than climate action, and often contested policy options.
Nationally, land transport accounts for nearly a quarter of territorial emissions.
In Brighton and Hove, land transport contributes nearly 300,000 t CO2e to territorial emissions, or 34%. However, this excludes travel by residents outside the City boundaries, so the figure for consumption emissions is much higher.
National policy has three pillars, viz (a) reduce demand, (b) improve vehicle efficiency, and (c) increase the number of zero emission vehicles. The Committee on Climate Change says policy is not on track.
In Brighton and Hove, planned interventions include an integrated transport system, promotion of active travel, increased use of public transport, and the promotion of zero emission vehicles. Progress needs to be faster to achieve emission reduction targets.
Short-term options can include: promote community car-sharing; reduce congestion; congestion charging; parking restrictions; increased passenger occupancy on buses; better interchange hubs and priority routes for buses; and better-managed cycling options.
A priority must be to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, and also to repair wherever possible rather than replace.
This paper is concerned with surface or land transport, excluding air freight and travel. See also two earlier contributions on transport and traffic in Brighton and Hove (here on transport priorities for Brighton and Hove, and here on dealing with congestion).
How large are emissions from land transport?
Nationally, emissions from surface transport in 2019 were 113 MtCO2e, which accounted for 22% of total UK GHG territorial emissions (Figure 1). This makes surface transport the UK’s highest emitting sector in terms of territorial emissions. Car and taxi travel dominate surface transport emissions (at 61% of the total), followed by vans and HGVs. Emissions are predominantly CO2 (99%), with the remaining emissions being NO2 and CH4 from the combustion of fossil fuels. Note that these estimates exclude the manufacturing and maintenance costs of the transport fleet; this is a big issue (see below).
Figure 1
Breakdown of surface transport sector emissions (2019)
For Brighton and Hove, local land transport CO2e is reported by three main government departments. The Department for Transport tracks the miles driven. DEFRA publishes CO2e emissions per mile travelled for various vehicle types. The Department for Energy and Net Zero combined these data to calculate local Transport CO2 emissions as 294,000 tons in 2019, the last year before the pandemic. Around half was emitted on major roads, half on minor roads and none on motorways, with rail accounting for only a tiny proportion. This amounts to 34% of the City’s territorial emissions. Note this figure does not include the miles driven outside the City’s 34 square miles, which are the vast majority of the miles driven by Brighton and Hove residents; however, it does include the miles visitors drive in the City. The same is true of rail travel. Again, this is a big issue in terms of local transport policy.
What policies are in place to reduce emissions?
In terms of national policy, the Climate Change Committee made detailed recommendations when it set the Sixth Carbon Budget for the period up to 2037, published in 2020, under three headings, viz:
Demand reduction and modal shift - considering how behavioural and societal shifts could lead to reduced or changed demand for travel;
Conventional vehicle efficiency - covering improvements to conventional vehicles that can make them more fuel-efficient; and
Zero-emission vehicles - exploring the technological options available for delivering transport with zero tailpipe emissions.
Note that ‘zero tailpipe emission vehicles’ still involve CO2e to create the energy source.
The Monitoring Map produced by the Committee for its progress reports to Parliament provides a useful summary of issues and targets (Figure 2). The main conclusion of the Committee, in its 2023 Report states:
Policy progress in the surface transport sector over the past year has been slower than expected, with credible policies in place to meet only 38% of the required emissions reduction by the Sixth Carbon Budget period and delays to key policies increasing delivery risks . . .Further work is needed to develop coherent plans and measurable targets in areas of the sector . . . in particular measures to reduce car demand – to make up this shortfall.
Figure 2
Monitoring Map for Surface Transport
In Brighton and Hove, policies have been established in the Carbon Neutral Strategy, the Local Transport Plan, and the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan. The first two at least are being reviewed. Key areas of intervention include an integrated transport system, promotion of active travel, increased use of public transport, and the promotion of zero emission vehicles (Figure 3). The 2015 Local Transport Plan provides more detail. The Brighton and Hove Bus Service Improvement Plan, published in 2021, included a 2030 target for bus passengers to increase 15% compared to the 2018 to 2019 baseline, which is equivalent to approximately 7 million more passenger trips (but see below on the difference between passenger trips and passenger miles).
Figure 3
Transport priorities from the Carbon Neutral Programme
Issues and options (for Brighton and Hove)
Using data sensibly
First, it is true that data used in reports do not always tell a very accurate story and do not deal with embedded CO2e. So, are councils like Brighton and Hove’s wrong to base their CO2e reduction targets and monitoring on government figures? Not necessarily. The available figures are better than nothing and can point to areas of interest and rough sizes, even if they do not help with precise monitoring. However, it is important to know what the data describes and to be especially careful about making false assumptions.
The DfT journey comparator (Figure 4) gives good information on the CO2e savings that might be made by switching mode of transport, even if it exposes some unwelcome truths (like moving from car to bus not saving any CO2e unless bus occupancy is increased – on which see below).
Source: https://maps.dft.gov.uk/journey-emission-comparisons-interactive-dashboard/index.html
Note: The above is a 5.59 miles journey outside London (Morley to Leeds). B&H is not listed.
On the other hand, the Place-Based Carbon Calculator seems less useful in this sector. It provides information about individual consumption emissions related to land transport by residents of Brighton and Hove, and gives a figure of 873 Kg per person, or a total of 253,000 tons for the City as a whole, which is lower than official estimates only of territorial emissions.
Indicators of progress
Second, Brighton and Hove is not making the progress we might like, certainly not in terms of the targets set in CN 2030. Territorial transport emissions have barely kept pace with the improvements from fuel and engine technology delivered nationally since 2005 (Figure 5). The expected reduction of over 200,000 tons of CO2e in transport emissions (including for air transport and shipping) by 2030 seems unachievable (Figure 6).
Figure 5
Brighton and Hove carbon emissions 1005-2018 (kilo Tonnes CO2)
Figure 6
Potential BHCC greenhouse gas reduction by sector by 2030
Transport is different
Third, domestic and industry CO2e has reduced dramatically. It is important to understand why transport is different.
The big CO2e win for domestic and industry owes itself to the infrastructure to ship electricity and gas to consumption points that was already in place. Therefore, the decarbonisation benefits of renewable energy (wind and solar) could be leveraged very quickly as the infrastructure already exists.
A key part of future transport infrastructure relies on using green energy, i.e., for some 90,000 new or converted vehicles in Brighton and Hove. However, the necessary scale of renewable energy production to run a cleaner transport infrastructure will not be in place for another 15 years. This scaling up will require huge amounts of investment, energy and resources; for example, the electricity grid will likely need major upgrades to transport more renewable electricity from generating areas to the consumer regions.
Reducing demand
Fourth, if decarbonising transport faces infrastructure problems and if we want early results, for now we need to focus on reducing demand (e.g., by sharing higher occupancy vehicles) and wasted fossil fuel (e.g., from urban congestion and traffic displacement); and also focusing the use of eVehicles on the highest CO2e consumers.
At the same time, if making a new vehicle adds 15 tonnes of CO2e to the atmosphere, that is about how much an average petrol car emits in driving its average 5,500 miles over a 14-year lifespan. The global warming impact takes effect earlier. It follows that a priority is to make cars last longer: ‘Repair-don’t-Replace’ is an important mantra.
Congestion
Fifth, major road congestion is a big issue (see here). Stop-start driving and queueing are big contributors to CO2e, much as they contribute to Air Pollution. TomTom estimates that 165 kg of the 911 kg of CO2e a vehicle emits annually in peak periods in Brighton and Hove is the result of congestion delaying traffic. A congestion charge might help.
Practical options
Sixth, then, and looking at practical priorities by mode of transport:
eVehicles and Hydrogen Vehicles: our next transport fleet
These are the key source of hope for decarbonising UK Road Transport, with the aim that around 30% of vehicles will be electric by 2030 and 60% by 2035.
From a climate change perspective, a big issue is the embedded carbon of new vehicles, and of the vehicle fleet as a whole. In principle, it should be a policy objective to reduce the number of vehicles, for example by means of improved public transport or more vehicle sharing.
Parking restrictions can discourage vehicle ownership, so parking policies discriminating against new vehicles or vehicles not in sharing clubs (as well as high polluters), should also be considered.
In addition, however, and in the meantime, the roll-out of charging points must continue. Brighton and Hove currently has over 350 charge points of different kinds, with ambitious plans to triple the number of lamppost chargers to 900, increase the number of fast chargers from 100 to over 300, and increase the number of rapid chargers from 6 to 100.
A particular focus needs to be on taxis, of which there are over 3100 registered in the City, with others from outside also operating in the area. Taxis matter because they drive many more miles in the City than private cars.
Buses
Getting people out of cars and onto buses has long been an objective. A bus with 60 passengers is much better in terms of emissions and congestion than 40 cars carrying those 60 people. However, outside of London, buses average just 10 passengers and, in terms of CO2e, barely compete with cars.
In Brighton and Hove, the hope is that 220+ buses will be zero CO2e by 2030 and a grant is being sought for the first 15. This would mean decarbonising our buses faster than cars (not our current situation) so we could then say truthfully that buses are better than cars in terms of CO2e.
However, for now, a priority should be to increase average passenger occupancy to at least London’s level (20 passengers average). This is often confused with increasing passenger numbers in total, but is a different issue: for example, carrying the same number of passengers on fewer buses or for longer distances would increase average occupancy.
It is worth adding that congestion reduces the efficiency of the bus service as well as deterring passengers. In 2020, Brighton and Hove Buses justified an increase in fares partly on the basis that congestion had increased the time taken to complete journeys: in the case of the No 7 from Hove to the Marina, journey times increased by 31% over a ten year period. See here for the example of the sea front A259. The Bus Service Improvement Plan included a target that by 2030, ‘the average time for a bus to have completed its route to have reduced by 10% from 2018 to 2019’. This will be hard to achieve without reducing congestion.
Rail/Tram/Light-Rail/Trolleybus
These travel options emit less CO2e per person journey mile than cars (or buses), but creating their infrastructure would add immediate CO2e and by the time people could start to migrate from their car journeys to them, most of those car journeys would be eCar journeys, reducing if not entirely negating the benefit. That is not to deny that a better and a connected public transport infrastructure is needed.
HGV, LGV, Taxis
These vehicles emit CO2e while providing services for us, whether supermarket re-stocking, home deliveries or builders. Their total CO2e cost is similar to cars, so cannot be ignored. The move to electric deliveries (eVans, Cargo eBikes), bulking deliveries and using local delivery hubs (e.g., for Amazon) can help.
Cycling
Cycling has health benefits, and of course should be a low carbon travel option. However, it needs to be understood in context. Nationally, if all car journeys under 5 miles (57% of journeys) were replaced by cycle journeys it would save 20% of total car CO2, or about 12% of total surface transport emissions (Figure 7) that is about 1% per annum to 2035 – a figure that will have fallen since the data were collected and will fall further as electric vehicles become more common. Locally, since most local journeys are short, the impact would be much greater. Note, however, that this is an upper limit. It would be implausible to replace 57% of car journeys.
Figure 7
Cumulative trips, passenger distance and CO2 from household car journeys by trip length, GB, 2002/2006 average
If cycling shares the road with other users or takes place on dedicated cycle lanes carved out from existing roads, then it may slow traffic down and thereby cause increased emissions from other road users. If those extra ~15M cyclist miles share the roads or reduce existing road widths or need cycle lanes carved out from existing roads, they will tend to increase the 98% of CO2e emitted by other road users.
It follows that though cycling should be encouraged for a number of reasons, its beneficial CO2e effect may be small, and it should be done in a way which simultaneously provides suitable protection for cyclists and avoids creating additional congestion.
Transport planning in Brighton and Hove
Finally, transport planning presents a complex challenge in Brighton and Hove. There are many objectives, of which reducing CO2e is only one. Congestion is an issue, as noted, compounded by road space reassignment. Air pollution is a big problem in certain areas, linked to vehicle characteristics, but mainly to congestion. Transport decisions are inter-connected, as for example when congestion causes delays to buses. Furthermore, policy options are often contested, as for example with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, Valley Gardens, pedestrianisation, bus or cycle lanes: see here on principles for local climate action. The new Local Transport Plan (LTP5) will have the difficult job of balancing all these issues. Planning policy requires a proper CO2e impact assessment as input to decisions that affect traffic.
Conclusion: A personal vision
I envisage a future where small autonomous Uber-like eBuses take us from home to our local destinations or to local hubs from where larger buses making fewer stops take us to other hubs (e.g., at the inner-city boundary) to connect to other buses or transportation options or to small autonomous buses to take us to our final destination. The smaller bus opens sustainable transport to people poorly served currently, without ramping up CO2e.
This requires little infrastructure investment and greatly reduces the need for private cars.
Others may have different visions, but the one thing they will all have in common is that they will take time, so we have to do something about our Road Transport Carbon now, including giving better advice to help people make things better rather than worse.
Rob Shepherd for Climate:Change
February 2024
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