Governments Should Spend Money on Improving Public Transportation

Public Transport
Letting someone else concentrate on the driving means individuals can work or rest en-route and arrive fresher and better prepared. In this section, find out more about the benefits of using public transport and how to encourage greater use of buses and trains.
Scotland's Public Transport network
Scotland's public transport network is improving all the time, with dedicated bus lanes, express intercity bus services and new and improved rail services offering fast, reliable and less polluting ways to travel.
Going by rail
New train services and even brand new lines and stations have opened with more to come in future. On many trains, you'll find at-seat power points and Wi-Fi access - great for business travellers - while passenger facilities at stations are improving too.
Park it, bus it
Park and Ride schemes are being built across Scotland, making it easier for car users to catch public transport into our cities. That means we all benefit from less congestion and faster bus journeys on routes that need fewer vehicles as a result and therefore cause less pollution. Better buses
Buses themselves increasingly provide improved facilities such as Wi-Fi access, comfortable seats, real-time journey information at some bus stops and better accessibility.
Why encourage use of Public Transport?
Public transport is often quicker and cheaper than using a car - especially in congested urban areas where parking is limited. Because it causes less pollution and congestion, greater use of public transport has benefits for the environment and our communities too.
The benefits to business of using public transport
For businesses and other organisations, developing a culture of preferring public transport to car use can help:
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lower business travel costs reduce the need for expensive parking lots increase productivity by enabling staff to work en-route demonstrate commitment to protecting the environment

Improving access to your premises by public transport can also help enlarge the pool of available labour and get more customers through your doors.

The health and environmental benefits of using Public Transport
If more people use public transport, we can:
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ease congestion reduce noise pollution cut exhaust emissions

Public Transport and your Travel Plan
Tailored to the specific needs of your organisation, staff, clients and visitors, Travel Plans are integrated packages of measures that you design to promote more sustainable transport choices for your staff, visitors and suppliers.
Formalising a Travel Plan for your organisation will help you get the maximum benefit from encouraging more people to use public transport.
How to encourage use of Public Transport?
Many measures that promote the use of public transport have other benefits and can make your organisation a more attractive place to work for all employees. Find out here how to encourage greater use of public transport among your staff and about tax breaks available to help you do so.
Easy ways to encourage use of Public Transport
Stuck in cars, it's easy for us to forget how much more pleasant public transport can be than shuffling through traffic. Many people only need a little encouragement to leave the car at home. You can make this choice easier by considering availability of public transport options when arranging meetings.
Promote the benefits of Public Transport
It's always worth reminding staff that, if they take the bus or the train, they could spend the time doing other things, like reading or relaxing or preparing for meetings.
Provide information on Public Transport to and from your premises
Make information on local bus and train services easily accessible by placing timetables and route maps on notice boards and by including bus and rail links in 'how to find us' information in company brochures and websites.
Consider transport links when choosing venues for meetings and conferences
Make everyone's lives simpler by choosing venues that are well served by trains and buses and circulate clear details of nearby transport links to everyone who will be coming. Give directions to the venue from the bus stop/train station for walkers (and cyclists) in times and distances. Start and end times for meetings also need to be considered so that the greatest number of people will be able to use public transport to attend.
Promoting and publicising Public Transport use
If people have the information they need about public transport to hand, choosing to go by bus or train is made that much easier.
Promote travel information services
For example: Traveline Scotland or Traffic Scotland.
You could also adopt Traveline Scotland's free Page Lander Wizard. This journey planning tool can be downloaded and inserted onto a page of your organisation's website.
Visitors can then enter the postcode of their starting point. Detailed travel information is then returned in a new browser window, leaving the website they were originally using open.
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Provide personalised journey plans
Traveline Scotland can provide quick and convenient batch journey planning for all employees. These personalised journey plans can help individual members of staff to identify viable public transport routes to and from work. This can also help to establish a case for negotiation with transport operators to extend or add new services.
Incentives and improvements that encourage Public Transport use
Improving bus stops, waiting areas and walking routes can make your site a more attractive place to work and encourage public transport use. Providing or subsidising bus and rail passes can make good business sense and there are tax breaks for organisations operating bus pass purchase schemes.
Improving routes and facilities for Public Transport users
Consider physical works to alter routes and to relocate stops so that people can wait indoors for buses.
Negotiate with operators to improve current routes or introduce new ones.
Consider providing shuttle buses to stations, other sites or key destinations.
Improve walking routes between your site and bus stops or train stations.
Provide incentives that encourage Public Transport use
Consider subsidising your employees' commuter travel by public transport.

Consider providing loans (possibly interest-free) to purchase travel season tickets.
Provision of public transport tickets for Business Travel
Pre-purchase public transport tickets and make them available to staff for business travel to common destinations.
Travel Expenses
Consider stipulating that car mileage expenses will only be reimbursed if there is no realistic/practical public transport alternative, and draw up a company policy to that effect.
Employer staff benefit schemes for bus pass purchases
Commuters can save up to 40% on the cost of an annual bus pass, usually without increasing their tax or National Insurance (NI) contributions, while employers can benefit from NI savings of up to 12.8%.
SEStran have produced a leaflet outlining how such schemes can work: