The Trades Union Congress (TUC) have reported that your commute took you 18 hours longer last year…
Tags: Environment, Pollution, Transportation, Infrastructure, Climate Change

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) have reported that your commute took you 18 hours longer last year compared to a decade ago, despite the billions of pounds spent on the roads and rail network. As privatisation has failed, journeys becoming too expensive, slow and unreliable, where is the incentive for people to use public transport as a cleaner and greener method of travelling?

Climate change and global warming, resulting from carbon emissions exhumed by polluting, congested traffic, should be motive enough to want to find ways in which to encourage more people to use public transport. However, as The Times reports that “journeys by all forms of transport take longer than they did”, whilst rail commuters face the longest commute, it’s of little surprise that people are reluctant to spend so much of their free time travelling to and from work on overcrowded and unreliable public transport. Chief Executive of Work Wise UK, Phil Flaxton, suggested that “long commutes have become a part of the UK’s working culture, but the excessive time spent commuting is one of the main factors contributing to work-life balance problems”, which effectively deters people from public transport.

The Telegraph earlier revealed that London is the second most congested city in Europe, with the average person spending 73 hours per year in traffic, whilst Manchester also placed in the top 25. The Manchester Evening News further reports that the World Health Organisation (WHO) lists Manchester as the second most polluted city in the UK, whilst listing London as 22nd, and additionally highlights that Greater Manchester has the highest rates of asthma related emergency hospital admissions in the entire country. Further to this, the BBC reports that Manchester and Salford have the country’s worst congestion outside of London, and that the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) states that the resulting levels of roadside nitrogen dioxide were a “public health crisis.”

The TUC have reportedly suggested that government spending is inadequate and has failed to keep up with the demand for greener methods of travel and reducing Manchester’s carbon footprint. Making improvements to infrastructure, and incentivising the use of public transport will reduce traffic congestion, reduce carbon emissions, improve air quality, and should shorten people’s commutes as the roads should be less busy.

The United Kingdom has seen a 9% rise in weekly commuting time, with the biggest increase being for bus commuters who now face a journey approximately 7 minutes longer. Increasing demand for shorter and more comfortable commutes is evident, and in order to allow for smoother journeys, the government must be willing to increase funding for infrastructural changes. A spokeswoman for the Department of Transport said “we’re investing more than £48 billion into our railways to cut journey times, increase service frequency and introduce new trains”, and added that “we are also giving councils extra powers to work in partnership with bus companies to improve services.” These infrastructural improvements are fundamental, but we must also find ways to further incentivise people to take public transport. EnergiToken is the solution.

With public transport under constant fire from disgruntled commuters, EnergiToken has the power to make public transport more appealing for the everyday user, as a platform which rewards users for energy efficient behaviour, such as taking public or ow carbon transport. When a consumer uses a greener method of transport, they are rewarded with EnergiTokens (ETK) which is a financially tangible cryptocurrency that is awarded to the user, and then can be spent within the EnergiToken ecosystem, built up of approved, energy efficient partners. If people are being rewarded for acting environmentally consciously, they will be more inclined to do so on a more frequent basis until it becomes habitual behaviour. The end result? More people using clean methods of transport, less traffic congestion on the roads, improved air quality due to carbon emission reduction, and a happier and healthier population.

Yes, there’s plenty that the government could and should be doing to increase public transport use, however as we are all living on this one planet which we share, so we all need to take individual action.

Visit energitoken.com today to find out how you can be rewarded for energy efficiency and protecting the environment.