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Our Approach

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Greener Journeys was originally formed in response to the UK’s imperative to reduce carbon emissions from transport, but the importance of our campaign is now heightened by the need for economic growth. Buses and coaches can play a significant role in helping to grow the UK economy, as well as helping to reduce carbon emissions and maintaining the fabric of our local communities.

Our overall objective is to deliver modal switch from car to bus by creating a more bus friendly environment and by encouraging consumers to change their travel behaviour. We adopt a multi-layered approach in achieving this:

Influencing central Government and decision makers:

  • Our work is underpinned by ongoing engagement with the ministerial teams and civil servants at the Treasury and other Whitehall departments covering transport, business, energy and climate change, communities and local government, education and health.
  • We gather evidence, commission research and produce reports to support our arguments. The Government’s particular focus is on jobs and growth, and research we published in July 2012 demonstrates the contribution of the bus to economic growth.

Building partnerships with businesses and local government:

  • Building partnerships across a range of stakeholders at national, regional and local level is crucial in making our arguments.
  • Support for bus services is essential at the local level, particularly in light of recent funding cuts. We are focused on making this case to Local Enterprise Partnerships, and to major employers and retailers.

Consumer campaigning:

  • We understand some journeys will always need to be made by car, but we encourage people to make more sustainable travel choices when they can – just switching one journey a month from car to bus would deliver significant benefits.
  • Consumer campaigning such as the national “You can’t beat the bus” advertising campaign we ran during 2010, has a key role to play in promoting the benefits of the bus and encouraging people to use their cars less.