A new survey has found that nine in 10 adults would be willing to leave the car at home in favor of walking, cycling or using public transport for short journeys. Prof Brian Caulfield from the School of Engineering at TCD joined RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime show to discuss if this indicates a shift in our way of thinking about our emissions. (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - you can hear the discussion in full above).
Caulfield explains that the Red C survey showed that people are willing to use public transport more if it was better. "It tells us that people are clamouring for better public transport. About 9 out of 10 adults saying that they would use it for trips less than two kilometers is pretty big, considering that a large amount of our emissions come from those short trips that are driven by private cars.
"We hear it all of the time and a lot of the results would tally with some of the work that we've done in Trinity. We did a survey which showed that people would use public transport if it were better. They didn't really care about the gimmicks of it being free or anything like that. They just wanted better, frequent services. If public transport is better, people will use it, and we see that from right across the globe where that happens."
So how good does public transport have to be before people make the switch from their cars? Caulfield says it would be interesting to see the urban-rural split in the survey. "People in Dublin would have better public transport options as opposed to people outside of the major urban areas", he says. "Do we have to be providing, say, a bus every 10 minutes in rural parts of Ireland, which would increase emissions? Or what's the expectation? That's why I'd like to see the urban rural divide on it because large waves of rural Ireland don't have good public transport alternatives."
Caulfield says he noticed some resistance from people about the headline results, especially around what's feasible, and this needs to be tackled. "A lot of people are right about what is feasible, and what is a good alternative. They will say it would add extra time to their day to use public transport and it's just not convenient. We need to show them the options, that we've researched and we've planned and put in different strategies for more rail, more buses, and all the rest. We need to start to deliver now and show people the alternatives, and then start to count on them making the change."
While Caulfield makes the point that the survey's results are pretty obvious, one finding did stand out to him. "I think one of the things that might be surprising is that 90% of people that said that they would do the one or two kilometer walk or cycle. That's not really backed up by what we see at the local authority level. Some local authorities have been sending money back to the Department of Transport because they can't get cycling and walking schemes through planning permission because of local objections.
"With local elections coming up, this is something that people could go out and say 'look, 90% of people apparently want this,' and they should be standing under that banner, that more active and more walking and cycling needs to happen in our cities."
