Dr. Lynn Sloman:

The first question on road building asked whether it is a question of stopping it altogether or building in environmental considerations. When we have assessed road schemes, it is generally the case that they result in an increase in traffic because increasing road capacity encourages more car-dependent development. It typically also results in an increase in vehicle speeds. If vehicle speeds increase from 60 mph to 70 mph that would result in an increase in vehicle emissions of, on average, about 13%. It is very hard to square road building with a strategy of urgently needing to reduce carbon emissions.

We should be stopping new road building. There may be certain very exceptional cases where it makes sense from a safety perspective to put in place some sort of change in the design of a road, but what we should not be doing is increasing road capacity. If we are looking to reduce traffic mileage, we do not need to increase road capacity in most cases.

On the question of free public transport, I absolutely agree with the Deputy that it could encourage a wider range of people to experience public transport. France is going through a very interesting phase at the moment whereby towns are making local public transport free. Dunkirk introduced free bus services in September 2018, just over two years ago, and at the same time as making its services free it also put in place some improvements to the bus service. Bus use increased by about 85% in the space of one year. The mayor of Dunkirk is on record as saying that people tried the buses because they were free and carried on using them because they are good.

The idea is that we should consider trying to get people to sample bus services by making them free. In many jurisdictions making bus services free is cheaper than one might expect because they are already very heavily subsidised by the state. It is certainly true in France. To a degree it is true in Wales. The additional funding that one needs in order to make bus services free is relatively limited. The environment benefit of that in terms of enticing people to change their whole lifestyle can be very significant.

The common charge people make is that it is no good if buses are made free and there is no decent bus network. Therefore, it is also essential that a high-quality bus service network is created. The Swiss idea is to have a public transport service frequency standards that say that if one lives in a village of a certain size, one will be entitled to a certain level of bus service. That seems to me to also be an essential part of that package. It is about making the service both free and good. Those are my main comments on those points.