The Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) Scotland and RHA have responded to the Scottish Government’s decision to scrap its target to reduce carbon emissions by 75% by 2030.
Màiri McAllan, Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Net Zero and Energy, told the Scottish Parliament on 18 April that the interim target was “out of reach” but announced what she claimed was a new package of measures, which included an integrated multimodal fares system.
The cabinet secretary said: “To make public transport fit better with people’s lives and to encourage all of us to choose more sustainable transport, we will also explore a new national integrated ticketing system for public transport in Scotland. We will encourage and support operators across all modes of transport to participate in that project, which aims to enable passengers to use one ticketing system for all elements of a journey.”
Ms McAllan also reaffirmed the Scottish National Party’s commitment to reduce car use by 20% and promised to publish a route map towards achieving that goal.
She referred to infrastructure for electric car charging and supporting the transition away from petrol and diesel vans but did not mention decarbonisation of coach and bus.
CPT Scotland points out such ticket integration is not a new commitment and called for a reinstatement of the Bus Partnership Fund for bus priority schemes which was paused for 2024/2025.
A statement from the body published on social media platform X reads: “We are pleased the Scottish Government has reaffirmed its commitment to cutting car kilometres in today’s policy package, and although we are disappointed the timescale for this is now autumn, we hope this means the reinstatement of funding for bus priority will now be central to this routemap.
“We also hope the commitment to electric vehicles and their infrastructure extends beyond cars and vans to zero-emission buses and coaches.
“Developing a national integrated ticketing system is not a new commitment, having been announced on previous occasions, most recently in last month’s Fair Fares Review.”
In a statement published on X, RHA, the trade body for operators of commercial vehicles, welcomes the “pragmatic” admission from the Scottish Government. “Today’s announcement from the Scottish Government demonstrates the need for collaboration and realism during the journey to #NetZero,” says RHA Policy Lead for Environment and Vehicles, Chris Ashley.
“We all want to reduce emissions and we are committed to investing in the environment, but it is imperative that any targets that are set are achievable and bring people along this journey.
“We believe Transport Scotland’s recent HGV Decarbonisation Pathway is an example of the sensible and pragmatic approach needed.”
Following Ms McAllan’s report at Holyrood, she was asked by Labour SMP Sarah Boyack whether she “would clarify what action the Scottish Government will now take to deliver affordable rail services and to support local authorities to provide bus services that people can use—rather than having hundreds more of those services cut”. However, the minister did not directly address this.
