Just Transition: draft plan for transport in Scotland

8. Glossary

20 minute neighbourhoods: The 20 minute neighbourhood concept is one of many ways to support local living. The concept aims to provide access to the majority of daily needs within a 20 minute walk, wheel, or cycle from home. It is an approach likely to be more readily achievable in urban places, towns, villages, and cities. It is designed to be applied flexibly, in response to local circumstances.

Active travel: Active travel is walking, wheeling or cycling. Wheeling includes using a wheelchair or mobility aid as an alternative to walking.

Demand responsive transport: A flexible service that provides shared transport to users who specify their desired location and time of pick-up and drop-off. Demand responsive transport can complement fixed route public transport services and improve mobility in low-density areas and at low-demand times of day.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The release of gases that have a negative impact on the planet’s ability to balance incoming and outgoing energy. As the most dominant greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), greenhouse gas emissions are sometimes referred to as “carbon emissions”. However, other greenhouse gases are also contributing to global warming, particularly, nitrous oxide and methane.

Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDV): Includes buses and coaches; Heavy Goods Vehicles including lighter and heavier road freight, ambulances, fire engines, bin lorries, road gritters; and other heavy vehicles such as construction (off highway) vehicles and tractors.

Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV): Goods vehicles which exceed 3,500 kgs gross weight.

Intersectionality: Intersectionality is a way to describe the ways in which multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage can compound themselves and create additional forms of disadvantage or discrimination.

Just Transition: A just transition is both the outcome – a fairer, greener future for all – and the process that must be undertaken in partnership with those impacted by the transition to net zero. Just transition is how we get to a net zero and climate resilient economy by 2045, in a way that delivers fairness and tackles inequality and injustice.

Net Zero (Emissions): A situation in which any greenhouse gas emissions put into the atmosphere are balanced out by the greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere, so that the “net” effect is zero emissions. Scotland has committed to ‘net zero’ emissions by 2045. To achieve this, we must reduce the emissions we produce to a minimum and capture any greenhouse gases we cannot avoid emitting through initiatives like tree planting.

Rural premium: The ‘rural premium’ refers to the higher prices that communities in remote rural areas pay, relative to urban areas, to access the same goods and services. Rising costs in sectors like transport, energy and food security can disproportionately affect rural communities in Scotland.

Trip Chain: a series of trips that a person takes for different purposes within a given time period.