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29 Aug 2025

Pre-registration has now opened for the very first Cycling Industry News Live (CIN Live) show, taking place on Sunday 14 and Monday 15 September 2025 at NAEC Stoneleigh, Warwickshire.

20 Aug 2025

ACT parent company Bira has expressed serious concern following today's announcement that UK inflation rose to 3.8% in July, higher than the expected 3.7% and marking the tenth consecutive month...

20 Aug 2025

Cycling and active living charity Sustrans has claimed there is strong evidence that a lack of infrastructure is the biggest barrier to getting more people on bikes in Northern Ireland.

14 Aug 2025

The global bike industry remains under pressure as Shimano, Giant and Canyon all report weaker profits and subdued outlooks for 2025.

13 Aug 2025

The ACT is set to be in attendance at the inaugural Cycling Industry News Live (CIN Live) trade show, which is set to bring together industry-wide education, market insight and product showcases...

12 Aug 2025

Britain's high street crisis has deepened dramatically with nearly half of independent retailers, including many in the independent cycling retail sector, reporting sales have crashed compared...

11 Aug 2025

ACT parent company Bira has condemned the Government's inaction over the "de minimis" import loophole following a Sky News investigation revealing £5.9 billion worth of cheap imports...

7 Aug 2025

Bira has warned that criminals are undermining legitimate retailers as trading standards services collapse, following a new Which? investigation.

1 Aug 2025

A number of ACT members and partners have been named among the final nominees for the 2025 BikeBiz Awards, which celebrate excellence across the UK cycle industry.

30 Jul 2025

A former student of South Africa’s Torq Zone Academy has taken a major step forward in cycling mechanic training after completing the prestigious UCI Level 3 Mechanics Course in Aigle,...

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DfT announces a shift towards public transport and active travel

Posted on in Business News , Cycles News , Political News

cycle pathDecarbonising transport: setting the challenge is the latest document to be published by the Department for Transport (DfT) late last week, stating the current challenges and steps to be taken when developing the transport decarbonisation plan.

The document describes how the Government intend to work with others to develop a transport decarbonisation plan in order to reduce transport emissions and ensure the challenge to reach net zero transport emissions by 2050 is met. The document also reviews existing climate policies in transport as well as existing forecasts of future transport emissions from each mode of transport, plus as a whole.

"Public transport and active travel will be the natural first choice for our daily activities," writes Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in the foreword. "We will use our cars less and be able to rely on a convenient, cost-effective and coherent public transport network."

The document goes on to list, "Accelerating modal shift to public and active transport," as the first of six strategic priorities for the plan, which seeks to deliver a net zero emissions transport system.

To achieve that, the DfT says it aims to...

  • Help make public transport and active travel the natural first choice for daily activities
  • Support fewer car trips through a coherent, convenient and cost-effective public network; and explore how we might use cars differently in future
  • Encourage cycling and walking for short journeys
  • Explore how to best support the behaviour change required
 
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "Public transport and active travel will be the natural first choice for our daily activities. We will use our cars less and be able to rely on a convenient, cost-effective and coherent public transport network."
 
"Public transport and active travel will be the natural first choice for our daily activities"
 
 
Mr Shapps said the shift in emphasis away from driving - where possible - could improve people's health, create better places to live and travel in, and also promote clean economic growth.

Cycling UK policy director Roger Geffen commented: "It's absolutely amazing. This makes Grant Shapps the first government minister in the UK to talk about traffic reduction since John Prescott tried (and failed) to achieve this aim in the late 1990s.

"There are some holes in the document, but it suggests that the government really does seem to be taking climate change seriously."

Former Commons Transport Chair Lilian Greenwood said the contents were, "incredibly welcome if the rhetoric matches the reality," but pointed out that would require a significant change in investment.

"Right now all our energies are on tackling the coronavirus but when we come out the other side we have an equally serious emergency because emissions from transport have to be tackled if we are serious about turning around the future of the planet for coming generations.

"It's great if the first choice is to be public transport and active transport - but that does mean the government has to change radically investment."

​The transport decarbonisation plan will be published in later in 2020.

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