LNER Power of One

LNER’s Power of One campaign posed an accessible question: what if people switched one leisure journey to the train? We translated that proposition into a defined travel scenario and estimate its environmental implications.

Methods

We used a YouGov survey of 2,006 adults, population and tourism data, and checks against the National Travel Survey. Survey responses established intended leisure travel, current modes and willingness to switch. We reconstructed alternatives across a 52 by 52 matrix of locations in England and Scotland, producing 2,704 origin-destination pairs. Google Directions and Trainline information supplied comparable road and rail routes, while published emissions factors converted each itinerary into carbon estimates. The scenarios then scaled the survey responses to the wider population and tested both full and partial uptake.

Findings

For a September and October period, the full-uptake scenario estimated a 28.4% reduction in leisure-travel emissions from the modelled car, bus and rail journeys. At half uptake, the estimated reduction was 14.2%. Under full uptake, the model also estimated approximately 2.9 million avoided car journeys, 1.21 billion fewer vehicle kilometres and six million hours of car travel displaced during the two-month period.

A separate annual scenario estimated a 16.6% reduction, equivalent to approximately 1.10 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions.