Five steps to greener transport

Transport is the largest emitting sector of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the UK. Transport covers everything from street lighting and traffic management to electric vehicles, logistics and sustainable travel.

As we transition to greener methods and reduce the need for travel overall, it has become clear that adapting our transport strategy can significantly impact us, moving us closer to achieving carbon net zero.

A deep dive into the interlinking elements of your transport emissions can help you assess what aspects of your transport strategy can be altered to reduce the impacts of climate change.

The alternatively fuelled vehicle market has grown extensively in recent years. As a result, you now have more vehicle choices, from standard-built cars used in pooled fleets to converted vans used for complex, operational work.

As part of your fleet management, you should regularly review your fleet size, vehicle type, fuel usage and whether you could use telematics to help monitor driving styles. Our agreements are designed to empower you to invest resources today so you have an efficient, cost-effective, and low-emission fleet in the future.

Think about transport and travel solutions as a blended approach. Many organisations have to plan transport options for moving their goods and people, which can be challenging. Others, such as local and combined authorities, need to meet the needs of local citizens and people travelling into the region for work or leisure, which is where smart, green transport gets tricky.

The optimum solution allows you to see all the options for travel and transport in one place. Whether booking platforms for rail, bus or taxis, access to a pooled fleet, ability to hire in a car, or use a local car share scheme, having visibility of all these options is a great place to start moving transport to greener solutions.

Simple solutions can help you make a bigger impact on incidental miles travelled for business and commuting or for journeys carried out in employee-owned vehicles, also known as grey fleet. You can maximise journeys and encourage electric vehicle use in a number of ways.

Options include:

• placing car share vehicles near travel hubs and meeting spaces

• making newer and less harmful vehicles readily available to more staff and at an appealing cost

• offering green car salary sacrifice schemes to employees as a benefit

A green salary sacrifice scheme gives employees access to newer, cleaner, safer vehicles, making commutes and incidental miles less harmful. Hiring newer vehicles also allows employees to choose a hybrid or fully electric vehicle.

Assess how your charging infrastructure can meet the needs of fleet users, employees, and the general public in various ways, including:

• dedicated networks for operational commercial vehicles

• in-car park offerings for staff

• hybrid models where charging facilities are made available to the general public at cost

In addition, some contract styles require minimal outlay from public sector organisations and instead look to the provider to generate revenues to cover initial installations and ongoing maintenance.

Deploying innovative technology to do some work for you when transport is live can help reduce carbon emissions. Across the UK, traffic management is helping tackle many sources of air pollution. SMART technologies can be used to incentivise and regulate driver behaviour and create Clean Air Zones to improve the air we breathe and how we navigate our cities.

Using roadside furniture, such as number plate recognition, vehicle charging infrastructure, sustainable street lighting, and traffic monitoring CCTV systems, can further extend your green impact, helping to establish and maintain clean air zones.

Find out more

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) looks at the whole vehicle lifecycle alongside your organisation’s wider strategies. Our agreements are designed to enable access to all ultra-low and zero-emission vehicles.

Download our updated Cityscape interactive guide to learn how small changes to the public sector’s transport and travel strategy can help us reach carbon net zero.

To download visit: crowncommercial. gov.uk/cityscape