Green transport at heart of sustainable campus

Date: 8/10/2012

Much of the effort to make Princeton University's campus sustainable has been focused on the implementation of green transport.

This is because transportation is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases that the site has, according to the 'Sustainability at Princeton' report.

Sustainability plans hope to return the campus' emissions levels to those of 1990 by the year 2020 without purchasing any carbon offsetting, reports The Daily Princetonian.

By putting the sustainability plan into action 75,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide should be saved each year.

The plan has two main focuses in order to make this a reality, the first being the on-campus fleet of cars, golf carts and TigerTransits and the second, the way students and staff of the university travel in.

With these aims in mind, a culture of using public transport is being fostered and car sharing schemes put in place.

An improvement is sought on the 84 per cent of staff who currently travel into work as the sole occupant of a car.

Financial incentives have been put in place to ensure that students and employees make use of the transport infrastructure in place.

With a car pool incentive of $50 (£32) every third month and the reimbursement of 50 per cent of monthly bus passes the number of people taking part in Transportation Demand Management programmes has increased by 98 per cent in just one year.

Making more sustainable transport better for saving money encourages commuters to be greener, but is costly for the university.

It spends $10,500 every three months on gas cards for the card pool and $53,196 on bus subsidies each month.

The TigerTransit buses are used to transport people around campus so they do not need to use their own vehicles when they arrive.

TigerTransit buses work on a shuttle system going back and forth between locations all day.

This makes it easier for them to come in by alternative means and share rides with colleagues or fellow students.

Posted by Nick Anderson

International Transport News and Sustainable Transport News