Sustainable Transport and the Environment Guide - Unite the Union

There are some sustainable transport initiatives that can be easily promoted at the
workplace level by trade union activists, such as: car-sharing; travel planning; and
training for drivers in fuel efficiency. These are all areas that trade union activists in
any workplace should be encouraged to pursue, to reduce congestion and pollution.
But above all, both central and local government need to take a far more
interventionist approach to tackle climate change which Gordon Brown has referred
to as ‘the greatest market failure in history’. We believe that the government will fail
to meet its environmental and social targets without both stricter environmental
standards and regulations to drive demand in the transport sector, and greater, more
accountable direct state investment in public transport infrastructure and services.
The deregulation of buses since 1986 (along with the later privatisation of the
railways) has been a disaster for public transport and the environment, leading to low
wages, high fares, fewer routes and declining passengers numbers, and increased
congestions and overcrowding.
Improving the quality and quantity of public transport is critical to any serious
sustainable transport strategy. More immediate regulation through quality contracts
in the short term, and re-nationalisation and increased municipal ownership in the
longer term is needed to deliver more services, higher staffing levels, better trained
and rewarded staff, more integration with other modes of transport, and lower fares.
Such measures would contribute to making public transport a genuinely realistic,
comfortable and safe alternative to private car use.
The European Commission’s proposals to force tendering of bus contracts have been
fiercely resisted by the European trade unions. We will continue to fight to protect
the rights of local authorities to provide bus services themselves, and to negotiate
Quality Contracts which specify high standards of labour relations, service provisions
and improve environmental standards.
There is also a need to retrofit and produce newer buses with less polluting engines, as
well as using lower emission fuel. Greater subsidy is needed but ultimately as the
European Transport Workers’ Federation says, ‘the role of the state cannot be limited
to ensuring (fair) competition between companies and probably providing an
infrastructure, where it is too expensive for the market to invest. The market has
severe side effects on social and ecological sustainability and does not provide
sustainable infrastructure and public transport’. Nowhere is this clearer than on the
buses and in the ‘Cinderella sector’ of the national coach network.
It is clear that railways make up only a small amount of the total emissions in the UK
and that has only increased marginally in the last 17 years, and at a slower rate that
the rest of transport which has increased considerably. Railways are an energyefficient
carrier of people and goods and hence produce relatively less CO 2 emissions
per passenger than other modes. Emissions of CO 2 per passenger/Km are, on average,
approximately half that of travel by car.
The UK is a crowded island with a high population density. Rail makes more efficient
use of space. A double track railway can carry up to 10 times the number of people
per hour than a 2-lane road. Railways can’t always get people or freight to the desired
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