Hansard

I thank Alison McInnes, not least for achieving one of the aims of her speech, which was to bring the benefits of car sharing to the attention of the chamber and, we hope, a wider audience. I agree that car sharing helps not only to combat climate change but to reduce both congestion, as we heard from Nanette Milne, and the participants’ travel costs, as we heard from Stewart Stevenson. In a period of exceptional fuel prices, that can be no bad thing.

The Scottish ministers are supportive of car sharing. It is salient to note that the average car occupancy in Scotland is around 1.6 persons. It is clear that we are not only very attached to our cars but, in many cases, reluctant to share them. It is therefore encouraging that companies such as liftshare and getabout in the north-east of Scotland are enjoying success, and I add my personal congratulations to liftshare for its success in the Nectar Business small business awards in 2010. I hope that both organisations will continue to thrive in the future.

The motion rightly states that

“encouraging car sharing and other more sustainable transport options can play a key part in helping the transport sector to meet its share of Scotland’s climate change reduction targets.”

Obviously, the question is what we in the Government are doing to bring about the level of behavioural change that will encourage more drivers to leave their cars at home or share them.

Our draft climate change report on proposals and policies, which we have heard about and which the Parliament recently considered, includes three interlinked packages of proposals that, together, will help to ensure that our world-leading climate change targets are met. Those packages are on reducing the need to travel, widening transport choices and driving more efficiently.

The first package, as the name suggests, aims to reduce the amount of travel through, for example, more home and flexi-working provision by employers. We are also exploring how the concept of shared community hubs with modern information and communications technologies might reduce the need to commute. The third package concerns how we can best encourage drivers to take advantage of the 5 to 10 per cent fuel savings that are inherent in improved driving techniques, and the second package—on widening transport choices—includes a variety of measures that range from improved cycling and walking infrastructure to improved public transport provision. It also includes our proposals to encourage the formation of more car clubs and for more intense delivery of travel planning for public and private sector organisations.

Stewart Stevenson mentioned car clubs in relation to Edinburgh. Car clubs and car-sharing schemes have a similar aim. Club members can access cars as and when they need them rather than have the temptation sitting in their driveway every morning. This year, we have made available £200,000 to encourage the formation of car clubs in communities of fewer than 25,000 people. We will look very closely at how support for car clubs can be extended in later years.

Our car-sharing plans are locked up in our travel planning proposals, of course. Travel planning advice to organisations includes free consultancy help to make the best use of, for example, flexi-working, which I have mentioned, teleconferencing, public transport, and cycling and walking to work. During the recent period of severe weather, the question how we can best get up-to-date real-time information to individual drivers about the perils of black ice, for example, was one of the things that occurred to me. We should strive to ensure that we get more up-to-date information through the use of satellite navigation and mobile communications. I have the feeling that that could also help people to know about car-sharing opportunities. More thought about that is required. I am not saying that the matter has been worked through yet, but I think that there is some potential there.

The advice that we currently offer, which is given on our behalf by the Energy Saving Trust, includes guidance on setting up car-sharing schemes. Since 2005, the EST has processed 400 travel plan applications, which cover nearly 1 million staff and visitors. Our choose another way website also includes that guidance, together with case studies of organisations that have successfully implemented car-sharing schemes, including liftshare.

For the future, our ambition is that all workplaces with more than 30 employees will have an effective travel plan by 2022 in order to bring about substantial reductions in commuter trips in single-occupant cars. We also aim to provide personalised travel planning advice to all households in Scotland by 2022 to bring about reductions in non-work or school escort trips, which several members have mentioned. I should say that I have never taken only one child to school, but that has been easy, as I have three children to take to school. However, the point is well made. In my community, one can see car after car with one driver and one other individual.

The delivery of advice on an unprecedented scale will be required, so we will wish to consider implementation very carefully. We also want to pay close attention to best practice, wherever it exists—whether in liftshare, getabout, the car-sharing schemes that our regional transport partnerships provide, or in our £15 million joint smarter choices, smarter places project with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. In that project, car-sharing advice is provided across seven demonstration towns, ranging from Kirkwall in the north to Dumfries in the south. That important demonstration project will finish in March this year, and I look forward very much to hearing of the lessons that it will provide for the future.

Meeting closed at 18:14.