This week (1st-7th July) is the return of Catch the Bus Week! This annual celebration, organised by Greener Journeys aims to drive awareness of the benefits of taking the bus. There are already 2.5 million people across the UK that commute by bus with a further 1 million using the bus as a backup option. However, here we have come up with five reasons for the bus being a great idea for more people to use for their daily commute;
Use your time doing something you enjoy!
By catching the bus, you can use the journey time to do something you enjoy, whether this is reading a book, chatting to friends or just relaxing. Feel refreshed by the time you get to work but using this downtime to enjoy your commute rather than driving through heavy traffic. Research suggests that bus travel can be much less stressful than car travel.
Quicker end to end journeys.
One of the biggest advantages of catching the bus is that most city centres benefit from bus lanes, this gives buses an advantage of not getting stuck in traffic. This often makes bus travel quicker during peak hours. Additionally, buses often have access through parts of city centres that you can’t take private vehicles, which means you can get dropped off at main destinations which is great when there’s bad weather or you’ve got heavy shopping bags with you!
It’s probably cheaper!
Fed up with extortionate parking charges? With bus travel, this isn’t something you need to worry about! Also, the cost of bus tickets can be reduced when travelling regularly and purchasing weekly, monthly or even annual tickets. It is estimated that cars are only actually moving 4% of the time, with them being parked up the rest. So, by catching the bus you could eliminate this costly expense of car ownership.
Reduce your carbon footprint!
Did you know that a fully loaded double-decker bus can take up to 75 cars off the road? Even if we all switched from a car to a bus for one journey a month, we could reduce our car journeys by a billion and this would consequently save 2 million tonnes of CO2 every year! With 13% of the UK’s total greenhouse emissions coming from car usage, the whole environment and roadside air can be improved by catching the bus instead of driving.
You’re likely to get more exercise into your day!
It’s likely that the bus stop isn’t as close as your car! Therefore, you’re more likely to get a few more footsteps each day by walking to and from the local bus stop. If you want even more exercise, why not get off a few stops earlier too and walk even further! Just the walk to and from the bus stop can help you achieve the UK governments’ target of 30-minutes exercise per day.
Do you catch the bus? If so, what’s your reason for this? If you don’t use the buses, what would you like to see before you made a change? Let us know on Facebook!
