Green travel Plan
What is a Green Travel Plan?
A Green Travel Plan is a suite of initiatives, activities and actions to encourage travel behaviour change. Having a Green Travel Plan is a valuable resource used to promote and encourage people to choose sustainable transport options such as walking, cycling, car sharing or car pooling and public transport.
A Green Travel Plan assists an organisation or property developers to systematically investigate transport options across the whole organisation and or property developments and assess where more sustainable transport alternatives may be used.
The Green Travel Plan is a dynamic document, which will change over time depending on the environment and circumstances of your organisation. Implementing such a Plan brings a number of social, economic, environmental and health benefits to the wider community.
Why implement a Green Travel Plan?
Traffic congestion, parking problems, greenhouse gas emissions and fuel prices are a few of the reasons why organisations and property developers choose to implement Green Travel Plans. But you don't need to be experiencing problems before you think about implementing a Green Travel Plan. A key aspect of the Green Travel Plan is that individuals need only change a few of their weekly single occupancy motor vehicle trips to sustainable forms of transport to have a marked impact on their health, traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.
The Green Travel Plan Guide
The Green Travel Plan guide is a resource for organisations wanting to develop and implement their own Green Travel Plans. The contents take you step-by-step through the process with the primary focus on commuter travel to and from workplaces.
Reducing Fuel Costs
It may be difficult to Travel Smart all the time, so when you absolutely have to drive, the following tips will help you to improve the fuel efficiency of your car and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Trip Blending
Each litre of petrol used emits 2.5kg of greenhouse gases this rises significantly when the car is cold. Short motor vehicle trips cause the most environmental harm per kilometre driven. Reduce emissions and save both time and money by planning to do a number of tasks in one trip rather than several trips.
Minimise fuel wasted in idling
Fuel is wasted when you idle, for example when waiting to pick someone up. By switching off the engine (even if it's for a short period of time) you'll save more fuel than is lost from the burst of fuel required for restarting. The net increased wear and tear from this practice is negligible.
Service your vehicle regularly
Keep your vehicle well tuned and reduce greenhouse gases by up to 5-15 per cent.
Check your tyres
You can save up to 100kg of greenhouse pollution each year by ensuring your tyres are kept at the maximum recommended pressure.
Watch your speed
At 110km/h your car uses up to 25 per cent more fuel than it would cruising at 90 km/h. Your car can use up to 25% or more speeding. Obey posted speed limits and save fuel.
Drive in high gear
The car engine runs more efficiently between 1,500 to 2,500 revs. To maintain these low revs you should change up through the gears as soon as practical and before the revs reach 2500 rpm.
Travel Light
The more a vehicle carries the more fuel it uses; an extra 50kg of weight can increase your fuel bill by 2 per cent. Use the air-conditioner sparingly. By setting your air conditioner on high, you could increase your fuel consumption by over 10%. However, when you drive at 80km/hr or more it is more efficient to use the air conditioner than to have the windows open.
