What can we do?

Energy Saving Trust

We need to reduce the number of cars on our roads and adopt other forms of transport like public transport, walking and cycling.

Here are some strategies that could help.

Car sharing

• A lot of journeys made to and from work and school by car take place with only one person in a vehicle. It is estimated that school run traffic accounts for 20% of rush hour traffic. If groups of drivers making regular journeys shared their cars then traffic and pollution would be reduced.

Work from home

• The Internet now makes it possible for some adults to work from home. Work completed on a computer can be emailed across the world within seconds, making it possible for people to work for companies on the opposite side of the world. If more companies agreed that their workers could work from home, the number of people who need to travel every day would be reduced.

Charge motorists

• We need to think how we can encourage people to use other ways to travel. One way is to make motorists pay to drive their car on certain busy roads. Local authorities could use their powers to charge motorists for driving in our major cities and towns. Charging would make drivers more aware of the impact driving their cars has on the environment. Money from charging would be used to improve public transport and give people even more reason to leave the car at home. Higher parking charges in cities might also encourage people to use public transport because it would be cheaper than driving and having to pay for parking. In order for this to happen, parking in our towns and cities could be made more expensive than the cost of public transport, although again this is for local authorities to decide.

Can you think of any other ways that we can reduce the number of cars on our roads?