Public Transport is Insurance against Emissions Trading Impacts

Town planners should take note that investment in public transport is a highly effective tool for insulating against carbon costs, says an international expert on sustainable land transport.

Professor John Stanley of the University of Sydney was speaking yesterday (14 July 2008) at the New Zealand Bus and Coach Association (BCA) conference in Invercargill.

“Increased investment in public transport is certainly the best insurance against any future impacts of emissions trading. Authorities need to work together to introduce good public transport for all socio-economic groups and to create walking and cycling friendly urban areas.”

He told the 300 conference-goers that car use was a main greenhouse gas emitter so even small moves to encourage people to take either public transport or active (walking, cycling) transport could make a real difference.

In Australasia, transport is the 3rd largest sector (behind agriculture and stationary energy) and 2nd fastest growing sector (behind stationary energy) for greenhouse gas emissions.

In turn, 88 percent of transport emissions came from road transport, with the main culprit being the car: cars generate about 60 percent of the road transport emissions. In comparison, buses only generate about 3 percent.

Professor Stanley said reaching a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to below the year 2000 levels by the year 2020 could realistically be achieved through a mind-shift away from intense car use.

But the onus was on central, regional and local authorities to improve land-use planning and public transport to make it easy for people to leave the car in the garage.

Raewyn Bleakley, Chief Executive Officer of the Bus and Coach Association, said that many people were probably not aware that cars contributed such a large percentage of overall carbon emissions.

“Urban transport needs to shift away from private car use and hopefully information of the type Professor Stanley shared today will provide some impetus to officials to increase investment in public transport in New Zealand.”

Some idea for game design

At the start point of the game, the game player will be given an amount of bill for using during the game journey. As we know, car will cost more energy and produce more pollution to the environment. However, public transport will cost twice less than the private car and walking cost the least. During this game, you can choose your transport tool from several types of transportation tools supported. If the transportation tool you choose cost more energy, the more money you will lose. On the contrast, the less energy you use, the less money you will lose.

At the same time, if you drive car as your transport tool, you will prepare more money and time to spend during your game journey such as car parking fees and looking for car parking place. You will lose your game if you make the choice of costing too much of your money.

Research on transportation issues

• Environmental effects of transportation

Transport generates a number of adverse environmental effects from both transport infrastructure and vehicles. The effects can be direct, indirect and cumulative. Indirect effects may have greater consequences than direct effects, but are not generally well understood.
Transport infrastructure and the operation of vehicles can affect rural and community character, and can sever communities. Discharges and road crashes have a significant impact on health, and the form of the transport system can be a deterrent to exercise by walking and cycling.
The development of car-dependent environments imposes higher average living costs on families and can also restrict mobility for the elderly, children, the poor, the disabled and those who do not wish to own a motor vehicle.
Congestion also imposes some significant costs on communities. These include:
environment costs through higher levels of air pollution
economic costs – Auckland’s congestion is estimated to cost the national economy more than $1 billion per year
social costs, for example, increased levels of stress and less time available for other activities.

Effects including Emissions, Byproducts,Expansion,Biosecurity,Noise.

• Transport:

Our high dependence on cars has some significant environmental impacts. Cars use energy less efficiently than other modes – walking uses 10 times less energy and cycling uses around 100 times less energy than a car… and food is a renewable resource......

• Sustainable transport

Sustainable transport is about finding ways to move people, goods and information in ways that reduce its impact on the environment, the economy, and society. Some options include:.....

• Benefits of using public transport

Public passenger transport offers an alternative means of transport for those who do not drive a car, because of age, disability, income or inclination.

• Vic commute

With more than 22,000 staff and students spread across 4 campuses, the VUW community generates a lot of public and private traffic. Vic Commute has been launched in partnership with Greater Wellington Regional Council to meet the needs of Victoria commuters by providing better transport options. Rather than simply investigating options to increase the number of carparks, Vic Commute will take a wider approach, looking at strategies to reduce the University's environmental footprint by encouraging the use of public transport - buses and trains - and walking and cycling. It will also consider what other facilities might be necessary to support any new initiatives...

Environmental Policy
In August 2006 the University approved the Environmental Policy. The policy directs the University to actively apply the concepts of sustainability and defines its environmental obligations. The key principles of the policy are that the University commits to:

The principles and implementation of sustainability and environmental awareness
Implementing sustainable and environmentally sound business practices
Organisational and personal ownership of the policy
Ensuring that the University’s environmental footprint is managed
Providing community leadership and environmental awareness
Implementing the University’s Treaty of Waitangi statute

• Environmental issues -Mar,2007

Good management of our region’s resources is crucial if we want to live in a sustainable environment. Greater Wellington is currently reviewing its Regional Policy Statement (RPS), which identifies ways of managing resources, such as water and ecosystems, and dealing with the things that affect our environment, such as waste and transportation.
Greater Wellington published Our region – their future last year as part of the review. The report outlined the successes and shortcomings of the current RPS and asked for feedback on how issues could be managed differently in the next RPS.
“We received a pleasing response with 92 comments on environmental problems that the submitters believed should be tackled,” says Greater Wellington’s Environment Committee Chair Cr Chris Turver.

Key issues included:

Waste management
Transport
Air quality
Energy use
Soil quality
Water use/conservation
Protection of native vegetation
Pollution of water
Climate change and hazards.

Cr Turver says he was interested to note that submitters were particularly concerned about issues concerning urban sustainability, such as waste and transport.
Greater Wellington will use this information to develop the next RPS, to be published for consultation later this year.
The public can also get updates on the progress of the review by subscribing to the RPS newsletter.
“The review is a chance for people to suggest better ways for us to manage our region’s resources, so I hope people will take the opportunity to have their say,” says Cr Turver.

Debrief

Project 1 Debriefing:

To be considered carbon neutral, an organization must reduce its carbon footprint to zero. To become carbon neutral is not only the environmental goal for the Victoria University, but Wellington and countries all over the world. Determining what to include in the carbon footprint depends upon the organization and the standards they are following. The carbon footprint is a measure of the exclusive global amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases emitted by a human activity or accumulated over the full life cycle of a product or service. The life cycle concept of the carbon footprint means that it is all-encompassing and includes all possible causes that give rise to carbon emissions. In other words, all direct (on-site, internal) and indirect emissions (off-site, external, embodied, upstream, downstream) need to be taken into account. An alternative definition of the carbon footprint is the total amount of carbon dioxide attributable to the actions of an individual (mainly through their energy use) over a period of one year.

The carbon emission is the main carbon pollution resource, what can we create to contribution to reduce this pollution through designing a game as a interaction tool? Inspired by "fly buys" that concerning a range of supermarkets in New Zealand, generally the game is about taking bus each time can get a fly buy point bonus and by this way if users collect a required points in a limited time will be given a gift finally.

Based on the issues about carbon neutral, how can we create a product using temporary techniques and software we are learning? Researching based on practice is necessary and play an significant role during the production process. Also, is there any potential game theory we need to consider such as the interaction between users and product? Moreover, what kind of information can users obtain when they experience it?

Debriefing.pdf