20% Traffic Reduction: ScotGov research shows how

Research commissioned by the Scottish Government from AECOM consultancy shows that it is perfectly possible to achieve the government’s commitment to a 20% reduction in car-km by 2030. But … the government’s weak response shows no sign of adopting the recommendations of the research, and leaves tough decisions up to Councils and to the UK government.

The history so far…

Reducing car-km is crucial to meeting the Scottish Government’s climate ambitions. Transport is Scotland’s highest emitting sector, and the disparity with other sectors has been growing. Within transport, cars are by far the highest source of emissions.

Without action to reduce car-km, the current upward trend (see graph below) will continue, meaning not just higher emissions, but increasing congestion, and streets becoming ever more daunting for walking or cycling.

In December 2020, in its Climate Change Plan Update [CCPu], the Scottish Government announced a super-ambitious “commitment” (not just a ‘target’) to reduce car-km in Scotland by 20% by year 2030, compared to (pre-covid) year 2019.

We said: “Although many cities have significant traffic-reduction policies, we do not know of any country in the entire world which has such bold ambition. It means a huge political challenge in sharply reversing the long-standing trend of facilitating more and cheaper private car transport through expanding road capacity and not charging for road use.“

We argued that some form of road-user charging would be essential to meet this commitment. In evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s REC Committee, Chris Stark, CEO of the UK Climate Change Committee, stated that the car-km reduction “will not happen unless there is a combination of carrots and sticks, and the kind of policies (in CCPu) are mainly carrots.“

Nonetheless, the government decided to concentrate solely on carrots – i.e. attempting to incentivise active and sustainable travel. A draft ‘Route Map’ to achieve the 20% commitment was belatedly published in January 2022, and, 3 years later, the final version is still awaited. The draft Route Map relied on the carrots approach, opting to wait until 2025, half way to 2030, to consider whether any disincentives to unnecessary car-use might be required. The result, predictably, has been continuing growth in car-km, from the covid low-point to the present.

The AECOM research

The Scottish Government (via Transport Scotland) did, however, commission research by AECOM consultancy, into “options for Travel Demand Management (TDM) schemes to disincentivise private car use in Scotland.”

In December 2024, shortly before the holiday period, and with no public fanfare, the AECOM report was placed on the Transport Scotland website.

Many people, ourselves included, had almost given up hope that the Scottish Government could meet its commitment (even if it tried) for a 20% cut, with only 5 years left and a rising trend. But … the report is quite clear that the commitment is absolutely deliverable if the government adopts any one of several TDM alternatives – and that these measures would be ‘equitable.‘

Based on considerable analysis, the report describes four alternative TDM approaches which the government and/or local authorities could adopt, and which it described as “deliverable” and “equitable” .

Additionally, it recommended that the government create a “Framework of Implementation for TDM measures” – for example, common legal, technical and other standards to ensure interoperability between different local and/or national schemes, particularly if councils use existing powers to create local schemes prior to, or additional to, a national scheme.

The government response

The government’s response to the report appeared online on the same date, again with no publicity as far as we know.

It did contain an important statement, accepting that a policy of carrots alone is “unlikely to be sufficient” to achieve the promised traffic reduction…

However, when it comes to action, the report promised nothing at all other than continued work with local authorities and others, “to update the route map and timeline for demand management.” Not even a commitment to begin work on the recommended Framework of Implementation, which is surely a vital base from which to move forward if the 2030 commitment is to have any meaning.

Meanwhile time continues to pass, traffic continues to grow and the climate crisis continues to worsen.

What you can do

• Contact your MSPs
• Are they aware of this government-commissioned report?
• Will their party take action on its recommendations?

• Repost our Bluesky tweet