Society

Nobina’s contribution to the goals

Within goal 8,

Nobina strives to ensure that the products and
services we purchase are produced in a sustainable and responsible
manner.

Within goal 11,

Nobina’s greatest contribution is to target 11.2
to provide safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport
systems for all, and improve road safety. This means we are expanding
public transport, with special attention to the needs
of those in vulnerable situations or those with special needs –
women, children, people with disabilities and the elderly.

Within goal 13,

Nobina contributes firstly with what we do
every day – enable millions of people to travel together instead
of travelling in individual cars. In turn, this reduces queues and
improves accessibility for other traffic, such as commercial vehicles
and freight. Through the transition to electric vehicles,
we also help to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.

For Nobina, it is a matter of course that special public transport services, such as mobility services, healthcare trips and school traffic, should also be as sustainable as possible. We are therefore working hard to accelerate this transition.

In Lund, Telepass, part of Nobina Care, is operating special public transport services using both passenger cars and special vehicles. Since summer 2023, more than half of passenger cars, 13 of 20, have been replaced with electric cars. This means Telepass is ahead of its schedule to meet the contractual requirement of a share of at least 50 percent.

• In Malmö – a few months after starting the contract in spring 2024 – 67 percent of Telepass’s car fleet will be electric, 30 of 45 cars, and the remaining 15 will operate on HVO. The city requires that at least half of the vehicles run on fossil-free fuel.
• In Småland, Telepass will operate special public transport services on behalf of Jönköpings Länstrafik from 1 July 2025, featuring electric vehicles from the very start.
• The electric cars are appreciated by drivers and travellers, not only for the climate benefits but also for the comfort and low noise levels they offer. It is not yet possible to replace all passenger cars with electric cars, due to the limited range for longer journeys during the cold winter months.

On the basis of our traveller promise and our values, Nobina wants to take the lead in raising special public transport services to the same professional level as other public transport, by working together with clients and other stakeholders and influencing the requirements of PTAs and influencing vehicle manufacturers to make special public transport services fossil-free.

If public transport is to improve, knowledge and facts are needed about how travel, travel times and conditions really are – not in theory or using gut feeling. Nobina therefore produces its own accessibility reports that use precise analysis and data to show the benefits society can gain by improving accessibility.

Public transport must constantly improve if it is to attract more travellers and if we are to reach the target that four of ten motorised journeys will use public transport in 2030. In our latest accessibility report from 2023, we analysed actual travel times for bus traffic in Sweden, where accessibility is insufficient, and which measures are most effective.

Refined methods

We need to know the reality of bus traffic and travel times if we are to implement the right measures that will have a real impact at a reasonable cost. Nobina has therefore published its own accessibility reports using data from our bus traffic in 12 of Sweden’s 21 regions. After the first report in 2019, we have now developed the methodology and use real-time data from the buses’ GPS system. This produced 40 billion datapoints that were used as the basis for the analysis.

Huge economic potential

The report indicates huge economic potential to be gained from improving accessibility. Traffic costs could be reduced by SEK 509 million per year through better accessibility, and conversely costs could increase by SEK 667 million per year if accessibility were to deteriorate. In a similar way, ticket revenue could increase by SEK 800 million per year with better accessibility, while poorer accessibility would result in a loss of SEK 1 billion in revenue per year. In other words, there is total economic potential of SEK 1.8 billion, which could be used for more public transport and to enable more people to travel by bus rather than car.

18 million more journeys

In addition to the economic aspects, a lack of accessibility and increased travel times lead to higher CO2 emissions, particle emissions, more noise and congestion. It also reduces the attractiveness of public transport, with the risk that more people choose to travel by car. Conversely, improved accessibility is estimated to increase travel by 18 million journeys per year – corresponding to half of Malmö’s city transport services.

Examples of effective measures

Flowmapper* can also forecast the effects of various measures. The accessibility report therefore also includes examples of effective and ineffective infrastructure measures, to provide knowledge and inspiration so that the measures that have the greatest impact on travel times can be chosen. Effective measures include signal priority, bus lanes and optimised timetables based on driving times over the course of the day. The accessibility report describes precisely how the data was obtained, the differences between various regions, and so forth.

*The report was prepared with assistance from Tyréns Solutions and the Flowmapper Analytics tool, which can identify accessibility shortcomings in detail, calculate the resulting costs, forecast the impact of various measures and adapt timetables based on actual driving times. GPS data directly from buses 40 billion datapoints.