What you
can do
Compare CO2 emissions of cars, trains, coaches and planes
Transport and travel gives us benefits we all value highly, from seeing the world and enjoying the countryside, to visiting friends and relatives, accessing jobs, and enjoying a wider choice of shops to buy from.
Most of us also appreciate that in addition to these benefits, transport and travel come with costs to our environment. In 2007, domestic transport was the source of around 24% of all domestic CO2 emissions in the UK.
CO2 is one of the main greenhouse gases and the chart below shows much is emitted across different types of transport in the UK:
| UK Total million tonnes of CO2 (including international) | UK Total million tonnes of CO2 (domestic only) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cars | 77.10 | 44% | 77.10 | 58% |
| Motorbikes | 0.60 | 0.3% | 0.60 | 0.5% |
| Rail | 3.85 | 2% | 3.85 | 3% |
| Bus | 3.02 | 2% | 3.02 | 2% |
| Trucks | 26.31 | 15% | 26.31 | 20% |
| Vans | 14.47 | 8% | 14.47 | 11% |
| Ships | 12.08 | 7% | 4.93 | 4% |
| Aircraft | 37.11 | 21% | 2.14 | 2% |
| Total | 174.55 | 100% | 132.43 | 100% |
As you can see, car travel accounts for more CO2 emissions than other forms of transport in the UK. In fact, personal car travel is the single biggest contributor to personal CO2 emissions.
Compare CO2 emissions for different forms of transport
An online CO2 emissions calculator, provided by Transport Direct, lets you compare estimates of the CO2 emissions of journeys made by car, train, bus, coach and plane.
Simply enter your journey distance in miles or kilometres and the calculator will do the rest. It will even take into account the number of people travelling in the car – the more passengers, the less CO2 generated by that journey per person.
The results will show you a simple chart that allows you to easily compare the CO2 emissions of different modes of transport. The example below shows that, over a distance of 100 miles a large car (with one occupant) will emit the most CO2 per traveller and the coach emits the least.
Could you drive 5 miles less a week?
Car travel is the single biggest contributor to our personal CO2 emissions. Together we can begin to make a difference by driving 5 miles less a week.
Reducing transport’s CO2 emissions
Read what the Government is doing to ensure transport makes a major contribution to the UK’s efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.
Find out more
