Y Safle

the writer of the Caredig i Natur blog really really does not like cars taking children to school. To be fair he is not alone. Many people, including most of the parents in the cars, are not happy with the necessity of a daily school run. However, the blog writer is rather disingenuous with his use of evidence, so let’s shine the spotlight on his errors.

In one article he tells everyone to use public transport.

He links to the transport direct CO2 emissions calculator and says:

Private car transport is the least environmentally-friendly way to travel

But look at the assumptions he has plugged into that CO2 calculator to generate the graph showing large cars consuming way more CO2 emissions. He has calculated a journey of nearly 40 miles with a single occupant. To be honest there are really not many children driving themselves 40 miles to school every day.

So I have produced the more representative graph. I have chosen a more realistic 2 mile journey with 4 occupants, and this is the result:

So in fact for the average family school run, a small private car has significantly lower emissions than any other kind of motorised transport. Even a large family car does better than the bus, and comes in at the same emissions level as the train (assuming you have a train connecting your home and school).

Now my assumptions: 2 miles is about average in this area for the school run, but 1 and 3 miles produce almost identical results (more emissions, but the same relative emissions). I am comfortable that is accurate.

Not so firmly established is the number of occupants of the vehicles. However the CIN writer rages against primary schools in particular, and so parents must accompany the children so the minimum number of occupants is 2. 4 is actually extremely common, but there are also many vehicles with three occupants, and otehrs with more. Parents who share the school run may have up to 7 occupants in a private car.

Whilst I am comfortable with 4 in my assumption, we could find average occupancy is closer to 3. In this case the calculator shows the large private car rising to .3kg per person, worse than the train but still better than the bus. The small private car is still at the .1kg per person mark and remains far and away the most efficient means of motorised transport.

Now even though this is a rant against Caredig i Natur’s nonsense and extremely selective choice of facts, I feel duty bound to point out some assumptions in what I have said. It is clear that private cars have lowest emissions, but if a train or bus travels the journey in any case, doesn’t that mean that their pollution will be spent anyway? Shouldn’t we use public transport if the buses are already going our way?

And to that the answer is presumably yes. If the bus is already travelling the route we wish to follow, then we reduce overall emissions by taking the bus.

Of course most school runs do not start or end near public bus stops. Almost no school runs start and end near train stations. The moral here is we should not be fighting for better public transport. If we want to reduce emissions we need to do two things:

1. Encourage walking and cycling where appropriate.
2. Encourage smaller and more efficient cars

caredig i Natur will agree with my first point but he seems not to recognise there may be times when a motor vehicle is actually necessary for the school run. That is his silly assumptions blinding him again. But to more reasonable people, I think those two measures taken hand in hand could considerably help our environment, our wallets, our health and our quality of life.

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