In its newly released Deliver for Today, Investing for Tomorrow programme, the Scottish Government said it will work to support smart transport and air quality.

A key point of the document was the Government’s goal to shift Scotland to a low-carbon economy by sharply cutting Scotland’s vehicle emissions: “We will increasingly focus our investment on low carbon solutions, in pursuit of the ambition we set out last year to phase out the need for new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2032.”

By introducing one of “Europe’s most comprehensive network of cutting-edge remote sensing air quality monitors on local and trunk roads”, it hopes to generate accurate data on exhaust emissions based on real life rather than rely on manufacturers’ information.

In the Programme the Government has Committed to:

• Create at least 20 electric towns across Scotland by 2025
• Add 1,500 new charge points in homes, businesses and communities including 150 new public charge points
• Make £20 million available to enable more people and businesses to make the switch to electric vehicles
• Add more than 500 new ultra low emission vehicles to public sector fleets
• Add more than 100 green buses to the fleet through the £1.7 million Green Bus Fund

To reduce the number of cars on the road, which will have the knock-on effect of lowering carbon emissions, the Government plans to invest £2 million in testing ‘mobility as a service’ in Scotland. It will work to make the public and shared transport as attractive as owning a car and include the development of information ticketing and payment functions to through mobile devices.

Investment Earmarked for Improving Scotland’s Digital Infrastructure

The Scottish Government has also outlined its plan to build on and strengthen the existing infrastructure underlying the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. In the programme outline, the Government commits to a mission to raise Scotland’s infrastructure spending to internationally competitive levels.

It plans to make a £600 million investment to provide superfast broadband of 30Mbps for all homes and business in the country by the end of 2021. The document states: “We will reap the full benefit of this investment by ensuring that digital innovation is at the heart of our economy. This is why we are promoting areas of digital technologies that are important for the consumers and businesses of Scotland, and that will improve lives.”