Travel plans
How to influence your residents to reduce carbon emissions through smarter travel choice.
Transport is the largest source of personal carbon dioxide emissions, accounting for 26.1% of personal emissions. It encompasses a range of journey types: travel to and from work, school, shops and leisure facilities. Broken down, emissions from these journeys can be significantly reduced by the right combination of communications initiatives, infrastructure investment and wider collaboration with schools, workplaces, transport providers and places of leisure.
Councils are well placed to effect changes in personal transport, as the choices that residents make will be influenced by the services and facilities available in and around the area. If successful, planned local transport measures are forecast to help reduce emissions from road transport by 1 million tonnes per year ( DfT Road Transport Forecasts 2008).
The first step in a strategy to reduce emissions from personal travel is to take account of the travel hierarchy and encourage your residents to:
- Reduce the need to travel and travel more sustainable
- Travel by public transport
- Choose the most efficient vehicle and smarter driving
- Read case studies
Reducing the need to travel and travel more sustainably
The easiest way to control emissions is to minimise them from the outset. In 2008 nearly a quarter of all car trips were shorter than 2 miles in length (Dft National Travel Survey 2008). Improving pedestrian safety and access is an important way to encourage residents to make behaviour changes, and improving the provision of local services will also encourage residents to make shorter trips by foot or bicycle.
Measures to encourage walking and cycling should include a combination of harder (infrastructure) and softer measures. Harder measures should look to implement pedestrian friendly paths and crossings, joined up cycle networks and improved cycle storage and parking facilities.
Softer measures should promote walking and cycling by improving the information available to residents about journey times, routes and facilities, as well as undertaking awareness-raising campaigns such as Act on CO2’s campaign to drive 5 miles less per week. Local communications channels such as local media, advertising and collaborative ventures could be used to disseminate information about services, timetables and initiatives such as Bike Week and Walk to Work Week.
Collaborating with stakeholders such as health or education partners may increase results, by focusing on shared benefits and joined up campaigns. Further information on this can also be accessed on the Sustrans website.
In certain circumstances, home working and teleconferencing may help reduce personal emissions as 37% of transport related emissions come from the journey to work and travelling as part of work. However, home working policies should take account of other impacts such as energy required for heating. Measures to reduce the need to travel for work purposes are also likely to have knock-on effects in personal travel behaviour.
Travel by public transport
Public transport is going to play an important part of any strategy to reduce emissions from personal transport, as there will be certain journeys for which, or people for whom, walking or cycling is not practical. Therefore, your local transport plan or strategy should contain a strategy that encourages a reduction in car dependency and an increase in public transport.
Again, harder and softer measures should work together to achieve this. Old infrastructure should be improved and new infrastructure designed to be the more attractive option for residents. This should work together with campaigns to improve the service provision to ensure the new public transport users are retained.
Perceptions of safety can often be a barrier to the uptake of public transport. Your strategy could tackle this through improved lighting and siting of stops and stations, and through collaborative work with other authorities such as community support or the police.
Our local advice centres offer free sustainable personal travel advice to your residents, so feel free to promote this service through all your communications channels. Phone free on 0800 512 012. Find out more about sustainable travel.
Your strategy to reduce car dependency should also contain communications activities aimed at the local community to educate residents about public transport options, particularly for short journeys, and to make the sustainable choice the first choice.
Choose the most efficient vehicle and smarter driving
Where residents have no public transport option available and they view car use as essential, the emphasis ought to be on promoting the most efficient vehicle and encouraging smarter driving. Campaigns to promote the benefits of more fuel efficient vehicles should be combined with wider infrastructure provision to encourage uptake of electric vehicles and the development of the electric vehicle market.
In England, this should also take account of the outcome of the consultation on permitted development rights for electric vehicle charging points. Further information is available on the Communities and Local Government website.
By driving sustainably, both fuel costs and carbon emissions can be reduced by up to 15%, potentially saving up to £220 per year in fuel costs. This is increasingly important in the current time, where rising fuel costs are the subject of much speculation.
Our network of advice centres run public and employee events to raise awareness of sustainable travel and includes a smarter driving simulator to demonstrate smarter driving techniques in an engaging manner.
The Department for Transport also provides information about creating a residential travel plan, including particular guidance around planning for new developments.
Alongside communications campaigns, fiscal penalties or incentives to reduce car use and stimulate low emission car purchase might be appropriate. This may include congestion charging or parking fees based on carbon dioxide emissions. These schemes can be difficult to implement and require strong leadership from both councillors and senior management. For information on how this commitment can be achieved, see the section on Engaging members and senior management of our guide to reduce emissions across the local authority. This is primarily aimed at English local authorities but should be useful for councils in the devolved administrations.
Case Studies
Worcester City Council – Choose How You Move
Worcester City Council was chosen as one of three Sustainable Travel Towns and awarded funding of £3.5 million over five years. Through an extensive programme of personal travel planning and communications campaigns, Worcester was able to bring about a 12 per cent shift away from personal car use to other modes.
Visit the DfT's website to view the Worcester City Council - Choose how you move case study
Brighton and Hove City Council – Personalised Travel Planning
Through a comprehensive online and offline marketing, a programme of personal travel planning and designation as a Cycling Demonstration Town, Brighton and Hove saw a reduction in car trips of six per cent, balanced by an increase in both walking and cycling.
London Borough of Richmond – Parking charges based on carbon dioxide emissions
In April 2007, the London Borough of Richmond become the first local authority in the United Kingdom to charge for residents’ parking permits according to how much carbon dioxide their vehicle produced, an approach which has since been adopted by other councils. There are plans to extend the scheme to include variable charging in public car parks.
Visit the London Borough of Richmond's website for more information
Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council – Getabout campaign
Getabout is a joint project featureing several organisations that want to create a better transport system and more transport choices in Aberdeen City and Shire. It came out of the ten year travel plan strategy and seeks to encourage residents to think of the car as a mode of transport rather than the mode of transport to get across Scotland.
Visit the Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council website for more information
