SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT TO MISS TARGET OF REPLACING DIESEL BUSES

The Scottish government will miss a key target to remove the majority of diesel buses from public transport by next year, according to a report by Transform Scotland.

The removal of the majority of fossil fuel busses from transport in Scotland by 2023 was a pledge made in the SNP’S 2021 Holyrood election manifesto and further emphasised in ministers Programme for Government.

However this report found that only 16% of the bus fleet will be electric or hydrogen powered by the end of 2023. Transform Scotland a national alliance for sustainable transport, examined the governments transport goals and while some are on track goals such as this one were found to have stalled.

The organisation’s report, Stuck in Traffic found that to achieve this goal would require more than 1,850 of the country’s 3,700 licensed buses to be converted to zero-emission vehicles.

It also found there were approximately 280 zero-emission buses operating in Scotland, with funding awarded for another 325. On this trajectory, more than 600 buses, 16% of the fleet, would be decarbonised by the end of 2023.

Transform Scotland’s report analysed 10 headline transport commitments from last year’s Programme for Government.

The study said efforts to decarbonise the bus fleet, improve bus priority on Glasgow motorways and introduce fair rail fares had made “no progress” or were unlikely to meet their targets.

The report’s author Marie Ferdelman said missing the bus decarbonisation target would be “hugely disappointing” as she called on the government to step up its efforts.

She said: “The Scottish government should be judged on whether they can deliver on what they have promised and in this case they will not be able to do so.

There has been some progress on other targets, but we observed no or only slow progress on the majority of sustainable transport commitments from the past three Programmes for Government.”

She added: “The climate emergency and the cost of living crisis require urgent action and more delay and prevarication on delivering sustainable transport commitments is not an option. Scotland needs a low carbon, affordable transport system that does not force people into expensive and polluting car dependency.”

A spokesman from Transport Scotland said: “We’ve always been clear that this was an ambitious target that we could not meet alone – that’s why the work of our bus decarbonisation taskforce has been critical to our success so far.

Additionally, no-one could have anticipated the profound impact of the global pandemic.”

They added: “We were right to aim high and to ensure progress across the sector – driving ambitions into delivery, with the proportion of zero emission buses in Scotland now approximately three times higher than that in England. Coupled with the provision of free bus travel entitlement to all under 22s across Scotland – we’re putting bus at the front of our green recovery from the pandemic.”