travel planning for you

This section sets out precisely what goes into making a travel plan. Though the content and details of each travel plan will vary, the framework must contain the same basic elements:

Site Assessment

Simply consists of reviewing the facilities provided on site and transport infrastructure in the immediate vicinity. You should take account of things including car parking, cycle facilities, pedestrian access and bus stops and include policies such as home-working, flexitime and any travel incentives.

Travel Survey

This step must be undertaken in order to find out how staff are currently travelling on their commute, as well as on business trips. It is important to find out the reasons that people are travelling in a particular way, as well as the barriers that prevent them from making other choices.

Objectives and Targets

A travel plan must set out objectives and targets that the company will work towards. The targets should be ambitious, but must also be realistic. What the targets are will be organisation specific, but general objectives can include things like ‘cutting the number of people commuting in single occupancy vehicles’, ‘increasing the proportion of people using public transport’ or ‘raising the percentage of employees that cycle to work’.
It can be difficult to judge what is appropriate for the more specific targets, so speak to your local travel plan officer for help and advice.

Identify actions

Your staff research will help you identify what’s required to increase the use of smarter travel choices. Appropriate actions may be as simple as providing public transport information or setting up corporate ticket schemes. Further measures could include the provision of cycle lockers and showers, setting up flexible working practices or liaising with the local authority to improve footpaths or lighting in the surrounding streets. Again, it may be a good idea to contact your local travel plan officer to get ideas or information on best practice.

Monitoring

Monitoring is really important to show which measures have been successful and which may need re-evaluating.

It’s advised that monitoring takes place every two years through a repeat of the staff travel survey, though for smaller companies, where monitoring will be easier, a survey every year will bring much better reporting.