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Climate villains? Road users are the solution, not the problem, says IRU |
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Monday, 31 January 2011 08:30 |
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Many people blame the road sector for climate change, citing its trucks and buses with their fuel-thirsty engines. However, the International Road transport Union (IRU), which represents hauliers and coaches, says it has been unfairly cast as the villain in the debate about global warming. In fact, says the IRU’s General Delegate to the EU Michael Nielsen, the road sector represents only a tiny fraction of emissions, and is making huge efforts to cut its share down.
Trucks provide a potent symbol of global warming for the man on the street: even after years of technical innovation, the sound of the engine, the smell of the exhaust, and the sight of the fumes all combine to conjure an impression of planet-heating emissions. But is this fair or even accurate? Not according to the road sector. The International Road transport Union (IRU), which represents road freight and passenger transport, says it has been unjustly tarred as the worst offender whenever political leaders debate climate action.
“We’re an easy target. We’re very visible. We’re somebody, people imagine, they do not need,” says Michael Nielsen, who heads the IRU’s representation to the EU. He is well aware of the charges laid at the IRU’s door. After all, greenhouse-gas emissions from transport in Europe have been going up – by 27% between 1990 and 2006, and on current trends, with no offsetting policies, emissions from transport would be 74% higher in 2050 than in 1990, according to a report by AEA Technology.
But Nielsen insists that these figures should be put in perspective. He points out that some 30-35% of greenhouse gases are caused by transport, and just 3-5% is caused by heavy goods vehicles. “That’s not a lot,” he says. “And if you look at the burning of oil, which is causing the greenhouses, 72% is caused by fixed installations today, for heating or electricity, for example. But that’s quite invisible. So it is a lot easier to say transport is the cause.”
Indeed, Nielsen argues that not only does the road sector use far less oil than generally assumed, but it needs it more. He says the road sector is currently 100% dependent on oil and has no other economically viable alternatives to fossil fuels, yet oil – a finite resource - is still is wasted on stationary applications such as heating, electricity or paper production, where economically viable alternatives to oil exist.
His defense of the road sector is part of the IRU’s attempt to overhaul its image. “We want to remove the perception of road transport as cruel and evil,” Nielsen says, pointing out that road transport carries more than 70% of EU trade by volume and more than 90% by value. “We want to show people the service we provide and let them know what would happen if we were not around.”
Indeed, one IRU publication last year, entitled ‘A Week Without Truck Transport’, outlines what would happen to a country if road haulage was grounded: food supplies would run out, hospitals would be without medicine, fuel would not be delivered, waste would pile up, schools would close, and the entire economy and community would effectively shut down. And Nielsen points to the recent phenomenon of low CO2 zones sprouting up. “They did it recently in a small Danish city, but the first reaction they got was from the fire chief saying they would not be able to put out any fires in that zone because none of their fire trucks complied. That goes to buses and coaches as well as haulage,” he says.
There have been attempts to force a modal shift in transport, mainly from road to rail, but Nielsen says forcing the pace creates incentives for other modes without having the right infrastructure in place to handle the traffic. “We have instead to make sure the various modes to work together better. We need railways to liberalize, creating more options for competition,” he says.
Last October, EU transport ministers agreed a revised ‘Eurovignette’ scheme which would set special emissions and noise fees for heavy goods vehicles. “The Eurovignette made us a scapegoat,” Nielsen says, calling the scheme a simple tax rather than an environmental measure. “Private cars also emit pollutants – why are they not included?” He says the IRU will continue to lobby against it, as it passes the European Parliament’s second reading.
As for emissions, Nielsen accepts that road transport contributes, but he insists that it is doing its part to address it. “We don’t mind doing something to reduce carbon dioxide,” he says. “We represent the operators, not the manufacturers, and every litre of diesel saved is money in the bank for us. We recently adopted a resolution where we committed to save 30% of CO2 by 2030.”
What can the IRU actually do, then? Nielsen says the organization has put pressure on manufacturers so they develop new vehicles – not so much that they meet the new Euro-norms, but focus on fuel efficiency. The IRU’s Danish member published a brochure in 2009 with the Danish Chamber of Commerce outlining the transport sector’s climate plans, that includes 49 suggestions to save fuel, from aluminium wheel rims to synthetic oil, spoilers and cruise control. Nielsen also calls on infrastructure operators to help, for example by ensuring that asphalt offers low-rolling resistance. And authorities can help by letting people know when there is free-flowing traffic. “We ourselves can do a lot too, training our drivers to drive in an eco-friendly manner, and we have an academy for this,” Neilsen says.
The IRU also wants to change road logistics. “We can carry more with less,” Nielsen says. “Airlines do that with the Airbus 380, container ships do that with longer vessels, railways do that with longer trains. We want to do that with modular vehicles. Some call them monster trucks, but we think of them as environmentally friendly trucks. If the European Modular Concept is allowed, there will be fewer vehicles on the road, as you would with one truck be able to carry three seven-meter containers instead of two. There is a lot of commotion with this, even though it seems acceptable when the other modes do it. So it tells you something about the image we have to work with.”
Photo © IRU: Michael Nielsen
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Managing mobility at work: Dexia’s experience |
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Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:00 |
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Until recently, mobility managers simply did not exist. However, today, a vanguard of businesses are appointing them to help improve company transport policy. Dexia’s Bernard Dehaye explains what the position entails.
Dexia, the Belgian-French financial institution, and one of the Belgium’s biggest businesses, has its headquarters in the third tallest building in the country: the 145m high, 38-floor Dexia Tower, on Brussels’ Place Rogier/Rogierplein.
But despite being a pillar, quite literally, of Belgian enterprise, Dexia has also been blazing a trail for the environment. Bernard Dehaye is the company’s effective mobility manager (his official title is Coordinator for Mobility and Sustainable Development). Having held this role for the past two years – although he first approached management with his ideas as far back as 1996 - he is slowly transforming Dexia’s transport policy to ensure a more efficient and energy-conscious commuting scheme.
Mobility management is a relatively new strategic approach to managing transportation resources. It emphasizes moving people instead of moving vehicles; making visible improvements to the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of the travel services being delivered; designing and promoting transit oriented developments, livable cities, and energy efficient sustainable communities; and improving the information available about those services.
But Dehaye initially aimed at staff. “My plan was to help employees arrive in a better condition,” he says. “When people drive a car, they are stuck inside the vehicle concentrating on traffic. When they take the train, they can read and work. They arrive with lower stress. It’s all about the wellness of the workers.”
Dexia is a ripe candidate for a mobility plan: while the average Belgian travels 20km to work every day, for Dexia it’s more than 40km. It was a long process, however, to persuade the company to agree a mobility plan: the first one was launched in April 2001, and offered free public transport for Dexia employees, a km refund for cyclists and walkers (plus changing rooms, showers and lockers), a refund for car-poolers, and free parking for cyclists, motorcyclists, disabled drivers and car-poolers. The aim of the mobility plan was then to encourage staff to use more sustainable transport methods, and discourage car use so as to avoid congestion in the city. “There are also image advantages – we want to be seen as a sustainable business, and we make energy savings elsewhere in the company,” Dehaye says.
Further measures followed over the years as new mobility plans were adopted: free breakfasts for cyclists on Fridays, bigger bike parks, bigger showers, and scrapping executive car washes.
Early on the scheme bore fruit: in 1999, around 55% of staff travelled to work by car, against 45% for all other forms; by 2001, cars were down to 33% and other forms 66%; and in 2009, cars were just 20% to 80% for other forms. Dehaye estimates that the over the past decade, the scheme has helped Dexia save 27,000 tonnes of CO2. During Mobility Week in mid-September, Dehaye organised a number of events to raise awareness for staff, and he arranged special training sessions for staff on urban cycling, so they can better deal with potential city hazards. On European Car Free Day in 2008, of the 6,202 employees at Dexia’s headquarters, only 354 came on their own in their cars, meaning that 94.3% came without, and 70% of those with cars came with other means.
Most of this is down to Dehaye, who is a keen cyclist, and president of GRACQ, Belgium’s French-speaking cyclists organization. He lives 5km away from the centre of Brussels, and he always cycles to work, even in rain or snow. He is also editor-in-chief of Ville-à-Vélo, GRACQ’s bimonthly review, and on the board of the Belgian Institute for Road Safety (BIVV-IBSR). Dexia’s efforts made it a candidate for Belgium’s first ever Environment & Energy Award, earlier this year.
Dehaye points out that there are costs for the mobility plan: it is €6.1 million a year, or around €984 per employee, mainly in the public transport subsidies. But he adds that he has no control over company car policy - although he has helped ensure that over the next few years, there will be ever-decreasing emissions levels for company cars.
And Dehaye is candid about one of the downsides for the scheme: there are risks for cyclists in Brussels, especially those travelling during the rush-hour (the location of the Dexia Tower is right next to one of the busiest stretches of the Brussels inner ring). “Safety is an issue,” he admits. “There is danger: Brussels is a big city, and vehicles on the road do not always think of cyclists. It’s very important. At Dexia, I try to ensure we avoid accidents.” However, he tries to keep them in perspective. “We only have about six or seven accidents a year, out of more than 600 cyclists. We can’t avoid it: the more cyclists we have, the more accidents are likely. But we did not have any serious accidents yet”, he says.
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In praise of Mobility Week |
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Wednesday, 22 September 2010 00:00 |
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It was eight years ago that European Mobility Week was created to raise awareness of various aspects of sustainable transport in European cities. The 2010 edition looked to be bigger than ever before.
One of the challenges for EU policy makers in recent years, as they have attempted to turn the tide on difficult environmental issues, has been to persuade Europeans to change. Pollution, congestion, recycling and – most of all – climate change are all concepts that are understandably unwelcome in our daily discourse, yet we have to address them sooner rather than later.
So how do we do it? One way is to simply deal with them from a top-down perspective, negotiating treaties and imposing the resulting rules on the people. But that risks tension and resistance as skeptical electorates are excluded from the process. Another approach is to build momentum from the bottom up, creating processes that involve everyone, willingly and enthusiastically. European Mobility Week, which takes place every year from September 16 to 22, is the latter.
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