This content has been automatically generated from the original PDF and some formatting may have been lost. Let us know if you find any major problems.
Text in this format is not official and should not be relied upon to extract citations or propose amendments. Please see the PDF for the official version of the document.
JEV Company Ltd, trading as EVie, has been asked by the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny panel to provide comments on:
• the Climate Emergency Fund and Sustainable Transport
Background:
We understand Jersey has ambitions to be proactive in eco, sustainable travel.
However, despite the publication of the STP, the Climate Emergency and the Carbon Neutral Strategies, we have detected very little, if any, actual action. We believe shared, eco, transport is too often overlooked by the States. We believe shared eco transport should be recognised as capable of playing an critical part in delivering a solution to many of the issues identified by the States.
In a very short space of time, EVie, a private company with zero government fiscal support has done more to advance the Government's own ambitions to reduce the damaging effects of Co2 from transport than everything and anything the States has achieved.
We would like to work more closely with the Government to help it achieve the goals it has set out for itself in the STP, the Climate Emergency and the Carbon Neutral Strategies.
EVie was founded in Jersey in late 2019 and operates a fleet of:
• 12 electric cars (think Zipcar in the UK)
• 180 electric dockless bikes (think Lime, Bird, Beryl and HumanForest in UK), and
• 80 EVie electric "BlueBikes" (think Swapfiets).
By the close of play, Summer 2021, we have:
• Signed up 19,000 dockless bike users and 3,500 car users.
• Delivered 114,300 bike trips and 3,667 car journeys.
• Enabled more than 400,000 zero carbon km by bike and 20,000 zero carbon km by car.
• Combined, this equates to 52,500kg of CO2 displaced from use by Internal Combustion Engines.
EVie has contributed to delivering on the STP's and Climate Emergency objectives. It has successfully:
• Helped migrate Jersey towards being all-electric island
• Reduced congestion & pressure on parking
• Increased healthy, Active Travel
• Reduced Co2 emissions, helping tackle climate change & improve air quality
• Provided equal access to affordable island-wide mobility
• Helped revitalise the local economy, including hospitality and tourism
• Offset some of the consequences of population growth on transport
• Invested in Jersey's future
• Delivered a legacy that benefits all of our community
• Introduced and used new technologies.
These achievements are exactly what the STP aims to do but has not done anything about yet. To accelerate these contributions, shared transport needs to be brought to centre stage and a true public-private collaboration be built on. It cannot, and should not, be down to the private sector alone to provide solutions to issues the
Government itself has highlighted. So much more could be done in partnership.
We would like to work more closely with the Government to help it achieve the goals it has set out for itself in the STP, the Climate Emergency and the Carbon Neutral Strategies.
We have the following recommendations on how the Government can accelerate on the solid foundations laid by EVie in delivering and accelerating shared sustainable transport.
- Mandate Planning Obligation Agreements on all applications for multi-occupancy developments to make provision for Shared Transport (see an example S106 from the UK here).
Shared transport reduces the number of parking places needed, reduces the number of cars and make more effective use of assets. This is already being done by private agreement between EVie and developers (e.g. Dandara), but needs to have a third leg, POAs issued by the government, to give these agreements teeth.
- Mandate Active Travel plans for new commercial / residential developments alongside/as part of the S106-style obligations. Guernsey is ahead of Jersey in implementing Active Travel Plans that
require an element of shared transport to be approved. 3. To practice what it preaches and lead by example: convert the States Fleet to electric and, where sensible, to make the fleet shareable amongst States employees. Making the fleet
shareable reduces abuse of fleet cars (which often become personal cars) and reduces the size of the fleet. Guernsey is ahead of Jersey in this policy objective. 4. Require DVS to speed up the review of legislation to allow the fullest range of electric vehicles on the roads. EVie has had several cargo bikes waiting for legislative changes to come into
effect since February 2021. There are many new breeds of electric vehicle (especially micro-transit vehicles) that are legal in the EU that are currently illegal in Jersey. If Jersey is to take advantage of all the innovation in shared electric transport, we must wake up and accommodate new types of transport being deployed elsewhere.
- Provide for dedicated dockless electric bike parking zones at strategic locations on public and parish infrastructure, island wide. Private landlords are already deploying dedicated shared
electric bike zones. The Government needs to catch up and lead. Dockless parking zones are common throughout UK and EU. All that is required is a white line mark-up with no physical bike hoops or other hardware. This will free up regular bike racks for personal bike riders and make it easier for users of shared bikes to know where to go to find one.
- Subsidise, underwrite or take equity in an island shared transport operator to promote the
expansion of the shared transport.
- Provide a car scrappage schemethat offers a cash incentive to use shared transport as part of the island's migration from ICE to electric vehicles. This is happening in the UK now - see this article from the Times.
- Free car parking 'zones' for shared vehicles, and/or the removal of time limits (yellow disc) restrictions.
- Build out an island-wide network of cycle lanes. The objective has already been debated in the States, but we detect little movement since. With an existing network of Green Lanes, it cannot be
beyond the wit of the States and Parishes to bridge the gaps and create a safe network of cycle routes across the island, quickly. A Green lane network is a quick win as opposed to a long-term plan (which we also support) to build out dedicated cycle paths.
- Zero GST on Electric Vehicles.
Contacts: Gavin@evie.je
---- END ----