Travel Plans
A Travel Plan is a long term management strategy, articulated in a regularly reviewed document, to deliver sustainable transport objectives through action and provides employees and visitors of commercial, public and retail organisations, students and staff in schools and colleges and residents in large developments with greater information as to the alternative modes of travel available.
Travel plans can offer real benefits not only to the organisation and its employees, but also the community that surrounds it. It may help to relieve local parking or congestion problems or improve public transport connections across the area. It may also relieve stress on employees through reducing delays
For cycling this includes:
- Safer and Better Quality Cycling Routes
- Showers and changing facilities
- Lockers at key locations
- Good quality Secure Cycle Parking
- Cycle Training
- Cyclists’ Breakfasts/Bicycle User Group (BUG)
- Assisted Bicycle Purchase (Salary Sacrifice) Scheme
- Pool Bicycles.
A “Welcome Pack" or "Travel Guide" containing information on available bus routes, nearest bus stops, cycle and pedestrian routes and local amenities would normally be supplied containing:
- Local bus timetables
- Information to encourage cycling, including details of local cycle shops, local cycle route network map, cycle training schemes, etc.
- Information on local schools within the catchment area and details of safe walking routes and other travel options
- Information on other key local amenities (e.g. schools, colleges, shopping areas, health care facilities, public libraries, etc.) together with a map-based presentation to incorporate, for example, approximate cycling and walking distances or times
- Information on local car sharing opportunities and schemes
Once a travel plan is created and approved a travel plan co-ordinator is appointed to oversee the monitoring and management of the plan and to keep it up to date. In the case of businesses, employees are encouraged to cycle to work through the establishment of a “Bicycle User Group” (BUG) to represent the views and interests of cyclists or potential cyclists.
For large housing developments a travel plan officer would liaise with the local cycling officer within BBC and seek to promote local authority-sponsored cycling safety and training schemes amongst residents, particularly young people. Local residents are then encouraged to become involved in such a way that the community eventually takes responsibility for continuity of the BUG.
Travel Plan Targets
DfT guidance recommends that Travel Plans should include challenging targets for modal shift in favour of sustainable travel modes. However, this must be balanced against the ability of a development to support incentive measures and the need to ensure that the requirements placed on a developer are fair and reasonable in relation to the scale of the development’s impact.
Bedford Borough Council has a threshold based on Use Class above which a Travel Plan is required, for example, C3 Dwelling Houses have a threshold of 50 dwellings (reference BBC's Developer Contribution Strategy as adopted March 2007).
References
If you are thinking of writing a travel plan for your organisation or development please refer to Department for Transport’s website
Look also at the Bedford Borough Council's Green Office Guide - Business Version particularly Chapter 3 on Transport and (3c) on cycling.
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