Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s travel plan set out commitments across a number of specific objectives. This represents a programme of activity to be implemented by March 2010. The following sets out the progress against each objective that has been achieved so far.

Objective 1 – to reduce the need to travel:

We are promoting alternative working patterns across the Scottish Govenment estate;

We are promoting the use of video conferencing and we are constantly looking at ways to improve facilities and use better technology.

Objectives 2 and 3 – to increase awareness among staff of travel choice and their implications and to facilitate and promote more active modes of travel:

We are communicating with staff to promote the benefits of sustainable travel;

The internal advertising campaign within the Scottish Government of the travel plan commenced on 14 June 2008 in conjunction with Bike Week;

We advertised cycle training for staff during Bike Week;

Objective 4 – to increase the share of staff commuting to work by public transport, cycling and walking:

The internal advertising campaign on the travel plan is focussing on walking during August 2008 promoting the benefits of walking to and from work and during lunch breaks;

We have cycle friendly employer status at Victoria Quay and will be working towards the award for the other buildings by March 2009. This will include upgrading facilities where necessary including parking facilities and showers;

During Bike Week our objective was to provide staff with the tools to try cycling to work safely and we provided cycle routes maps (Spokes maps) for Edinburgh and Glasgow. Trycycling manned an information stand promoting various cycling events. The bike station also had a stand providing servicing for bikes;

We will be going out to tender shortly for a salary sacrifice scheme for a bike to work scheme;

The internal advertising campaign will be focussing on bus travel in August 2008 and train travel in September 2008.

Objective 5 – to reduce car use in particular single occupancy car journeys by commuting staff:

From 21 July 2008 there will car sharing priority parking in both Victoria Quay and Saughton House;

European in town without my car day is 22 September 2008 and the Scottish Government will be supporting it through the internal advertising campaign to staff;

Promotion of bus and rail travel will be undertaken in August and September 2008 and will include different formats of travel information.

Objective 6 – to introduce a parking system which supports the delivery of the other travel objectives:

Staff that car share from 21 July 2008 will be eligible for priority parking in Victoria Quay and Saughton House;

The travel plan coordinator is working with other client committees to look at a more needs based parking system for the remaining buildings.

Objective 7 – to maximise the efficiency of our fleet:

Over the past year more emphasis has been placed on purchasing vehicles with lower CO₂ emissions. This is set to continue in the future through its replacement programme;

Driver training includes methods to improve fuel efficiency.

Objective 8 – to increase the share of more sustainable forms of transport on official business:

The Scottish Government travel plan operates at a number of levels. First, it challenges staff to consider if the proposed journey is absolutely necessary or if the business objectives could be met in another way (email, telephone, video-conference). If a journey is still considered necessary the travel plan then goes on to outline options for ensuring that staff use the mode of transport most appropriate for the journey;

The travel plan also underpins a number of ongoing and current initiatives. For example, the current taxi contract enables staff to taxi share to the same destination. From August 2008 there will be internal promotion to Scottish Government staff of the benefits of taxi sharing, bus and rail travel.

Objective 9 – to ensure the travel plan is embedded into existing processes, costed and reviewed on a regular basis:

A travel plan coordinator has been appointed who sits on the client committees at each of the Scottish Government’s buildings covered by the travel plan;

Senior management within the Scottish Government receive regular updates on the progress of implementation of the travel plan;

The Travel Plan Coordinator has liaised with Directorates across the Scottish Governmetn on developments arising from implantation of the plan;

A travel survey is being planned for 2009;

The full review of the Scottish Government travel plan is scheduled for 2010;

The travel plan coordinator regularly visits the main sites covered by the travel plan.

The information requested is given in table 8.19 of Scottish Transport Statistics No. 26: 2007 Edition, published by Scottish Government in December 2007, a copy of which is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 44371).

Table 8.19 was compiled by the HM Railway Inspectorate of the Health and Safety Executive. Responsibility for the HM Railway Inspectorate transferred from the Health and Safety Executive to the Office of Rail Regulation on 1 April 2006.

Rail safety is a matter reserved to the UK Parliament.

The mechanisms in place to monitor, regulate and ensure the security of the transport of dual-use pathogens is a matter reserved to the UK Government.

Following the concordat agreement and Scottish Budget announcement, determination of regional transport funding priorities is a matter for local authorities and the regional transport partnerships.

Local authority representatives form the majority of the regional transport partnership membership which has agreed the regional transport strategy (RTS). Constituent councils are under a duty, so far as possible, to perform their transport functions consistently with the applicable RTS.

The seven Regional Transport Partnerships received revenue funding amounting to £5.3 million in 2007-08 to assist with the delivery of their strategies. All capital funding was incorporated into the local government settlement for the period 2008-11.

Delivery of the strategies is a matter for each regional transport partnership working in partnership with their constituent councils. Regional transport partnerships are required to provide Scottish ministers with an annual report detailing their performance against their objectives, targets and performance indicators.

Three of the seven strategies have been given final approval by the Scottish Ministers and approval of the remaining four is expected soon.

In January the Scottish Government requested that strategies be revised to become strategic, high-level documents that focused on the transport strategies necessary to support the Government’s key objectives and the single outcome agreements of the constituent local authorities. Separate delivery plans agreed by the individual partnerships with their constituent councils will determine regional transport delivery priorities.

The links below to various travel studies gives details of modal choice and purpose of journey. The number of miles travelled each year by bicycle is not available.

Tables 17 and 19 in Travel Diary 2005-06 contain travel by bike statistics for the previous day.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/04/16110121/0.

The high level trend for travel to work is given here:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Transport-Travel/TrendTraveltoWork.

Trends from 1999 are given in the attached link in tables M and N:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/10/08091115/0.

Section 2 of the National Travel Survey 2006 will give estimates of distance but this is only based on a sample of 900 in Scotland per year and the bicycle numbers will be a small fraction of this.