Plan better
What would make the most difference to your community?
© Jim Killock / CC-BY-SA-3.0
What should we think about first?
If you want to make things happen locally, creating partnerships can be the best way forward. Think
about who you could work with, who might offer support and what local information might be
available. If you can identify particular benefits for neighbours and local businesses you’re more likely
to encourage them to join in and become involved too.
Marketing is big business these days for a good reason - it works. And there's no reason why you
should adapt marketing principles to encourage people to consider changing how they get about.
Similarly new technology has transformed mapping and the provision of information. There are now
simple tools you can use to help people plan their journeys better, which can also help you identify
the missing links and barriers that are stopping people get about your area on foot, cycle or public
transport.
How can we start to make things happen?
Work out how you are going to set out your objectives – you could come up with a snappy action
plan, create a village ‘travel plan’ for your community or perhaps have a say in neighbourhood plans,
which carry much more weight in planning decisions than previous community planning tools
following a change in the law in 2011.
Look out for funding options, whether from your local authority, developers or local businesses. Keep
an eye on planning applications for new developments in your area and try to influence them to
ensure they fit in with your objectives. See if you can ensure some developments come with
conditions that mean the developer has to contribute financially to the travel proposals you’ve put
forward.
Thinking it through
Home > Thinking it through > Influencing travel decisions
Influencing travel decisions
If it's fun, people are more likely to do it
© J Bewley/Sustrans
Travel is often more about habit than rational choices about the best way to get about. But it's worth
changing both.
Overview
Life’s too short to want to think about every different way of travelling before each journey. So
everyday travel tends to be based on habit, and some habits are hard to change. Public health and
marketing both provide many useful lessons about how to do this, both in terms of communication as
well as making small changes to the environment to ‘nudge’ behaviour. It’s not just about changing
behaviour but also maintaining change.
Major companies spend millions on market research and promotions to try to change consumers’
behaviour. If they want to increase their market share, it can be cheaper and easier to improve
people’s perceptions of their product than to improve the product itself. And this promotion isn’t just
about the technical benefits of the products themselves but more often about selling the lifestyle that
they can offer. For example, few car adverts focus on the technical statistics of a particular model,
instead they tend to show aspirational people having fun driving.
Unfortunately a lot of publicity to promote walking, cycling and public transport either is very matter-offact, focusing on timetables or routes. Or it can come across as ‘worthy’, even ‘preachy’. While people
who are particularly environmentally committed may not drive for that reason, for the majority of the
public, pollution or climate change is unlikely to be top of their mind when making a decision about
how to travel. Promoting convenience and cheapness may be more effective. Similarly while those
who cycle regularly may think nothing of wearing hi-viz clothing and anoraks, pictures of people
cycling in such clothing are unlikely to appeal to those who rarely get on a bike - it’s not a lifestyle
that’s going to sell well.
Influencing travel choices is not just about how you get about but also where you go to and when. For
example, people who tend to drive to a supermarket every fortnight for a big shop aren’t realistically
going to be able to use a different form of transport for that style of stocking up. Switching from using
a car for food shopping to a bike or bus may mean popping in more regularly to local shops and using
delivery services.
Range of options
You can simply use the information here to influence how you plan and how you communicate travel
initiatives in your area.
If you want to go further in terms of promotion, you can use a range of different ideas set out below.
They work better when you use a range of them together, such as in a local campaign. Campaigns
are most effective when they consist of a few bursts of activity, such as two weeks a year, so that
they are noticed but also become regular enough for people to become involved. Spring after the
clocks go forward and September at the start of the school year are good times.
Publicity
Besides creating travel information - see the specific section on this - publicity and advertising can be
very effective. Using celebrities can help you get publicity but they are not the only role models you
should consider. Highlighting how different types of people, for example ‘just like you and me’, have
changed their travel habits can be a great way to show that anyone can do it too.
Individuals and organisations are more likely to listen to a trusted, independent source, such as
doctors. Information that is individualised is very effective but if localised, such as focused on your
village or neighbourhood, that’s also likely to be listened to.
Events
There’s a huge range of different types of events you can run, as well as having a stall at other
people’s events. This is covered separately in the organising events section.
Incentives
People are much more likely to do something if they feel they are getting something for free or at a
reduced price, particularly if the offer is time limited. And they are much more likely to do something
that they have recently tried out a few times.
Don’t forget incentives for the people who are already travelling sustainably. You shouldn’t take them
for granted, as they may change their behaviour if you don’t reward them.
Examples include:
Vouchers and other special offers: free public transport tickets, discounts on passes, free credit
(such as when signing up to join a car sharing scheme), local shop loyalty schemes
Admission discounts: the Eden Centre in Cornwall, for example, offers reduced admission
prices for visitors who can show they have arrived by public transport or cycle
Freebies: cycling breakfasts reward people who cycle past on their way to work
Prizes: you can enter people who take public transport, lift share etc into monthly prize draws.
One-to-one
While working with people on an individual basis needs more resources, it can be very effective if
carefully targeted. Key examples include personalised travel planning and cycle training - both of
which are covered in their own sections.
Nudging
The measures above focus on information and incentives. There are also physical changes you can
consider, such as to street layouts.
Even simple measures can nudge behaviour. Ensuring a bus stop and cycle parking are highly visible
and convenient, such as placing them directly outside a hospital or leisure centre entrance, with all
but disabled car parking further away can help. Some actions will influence higher as well as lower
rungs of the ladder - reducing speed limits can enable choice by making walking and cycling safer,
they can also disincentivise driving.
Ladder of nudging
Eliminate Choice
Restrict Choice
Image not found
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/swWsuQ3MHGyKHe6qPdGXJ_w/image?w=25&h=197&rev=
Guide choice by disincentives
Guide choice by incentives
Guide choice by changing the default policy
Enable choice
Provide information
*
Do nothing
Step by step
You don’t need to work through each of the headings below for each travel initiative but they should
really help you think more systematically about what journeys, by whom and when that you are likely
to be able to influence and how best to do this.
Types of people and journeys
Journey purposes
The most important distinctions relate to purpose of travelling:
commuting - regular daily travel to and from work
work - such as to a meeting or making a delivery
visiting friends or family
shopping - for food, clothes etc.
personal business - such as to a doctor or escorting someone to school
other leisure - such as going out in the evening, a day trip to a visitor attraction or a longer
holiday
education - to school or college
These are broadly arranged in terms of the total distance travelled (with the greatest first) but the
ordering would be different if it was in terms of numbers of trips. Distances to schools are normally
quite short but the school run can cause congestion in local areas so is often something worth trying
to influence.
Life stages
The more everyday a journey is, the more likely it is to be a result of habit: you’re not going to
reassess how you travel to work, for example, every time you leave the house. People are most likely
to change travel behaviour when other things in their life are changing, sometimes known as
‘transitions’. These can be a particularly good time to give people travel information but there are
other opportunities too:
Moving home - even if to a difference street rather than a new area
Life stage - such as becoming adult, having kids, retirement
Change in place - of education or work
Health issues or just a New Year resolution
Visiting a new place, such as a short holiday break
Disruption - such as roadworks, line closures, strikes, extreme weather events
Different types of people
It’s worth thinking about the different types of people you can influence. Marketing professionals and
sociologists spend a lot of time to divide people into different social classes - this is sometimes called
‘segmentation’. Certainly what might influence an affluent professional could be different to what
might be relevant to someone that is job seeking. Similarly someone who is visiting your area may be
easier to influence than someone who has lived there a long time.
Theories of change
Psychology helps explain how people’s behaviour changes and this has been used to great effect in
public health campaigns, such as against smoking. This breaks down behaviour into different stages:
pre-contemplation - the idea hasn’t even entered into the mind
contemplation - thinking about it
preparation - taking actual steps to do it
action - doing it
maintenance - keeping going
termination - someone has given up
What this means in practice is that individuals may be at different stages and you may need to be
realistic about how fast they can move from one to the other. Obviously it depends on the context but
it can take three months for someone to move from a contemplation to a preparation stage. Equally if
someone in their family is pressuring them to do something, they may jump a stage.
So for example, you may have warmed a lot of people in your community up to the idea of cycling, or
taking the bus, something they may have never considered was an option for them before. But on the
ground it may look as if you haven’t made any difference. So don’t give up yet!
Thinking through choices rationally
Different forms of travel offer relative advantages over each other. You can compare them, just like if
you are comparing mobile phone deals or holiday choices,
Thinking in this way can help you improve the offer of different forms of travel locally but do remember
particular factors can be deal makers or deal breakers. Riding a bike or walking to work through the
park on a lovely, sunny day may take a bit longer - but can really be worth it. On the other hand taking
a bus late at night may mean waiting in a place that feels unsafe and so a much more expensive taxi
ride home is felt to be the only option.
The following is a good list of factors to start from but remember that people may weigh up the
following factors differently depending on the purpose of their journey. Reliability is important for work
trips, convenience for daily errands and fun for leisure trips, for example.
journey time - think about door to door times
reliability - both how often there can be delays and how severe they can be
cost - think about the total cost (servicing, depreciation) as well as marginal cost (fuel)
convenience - hassle of parking, carrying things, interchange
health - benefits of exercise
safety - fear of (subjective) as well as likelihood (objective) of being injured in a crash
security - fear of attack or theft of belongings, your car or bike
social status - whether the form of transport fits with your own aspirations as well as those in
your community, family etc
Looking at behaviour
Although this is last, it is certainly not least, as the latest research shows the importance of
understanding how and why people act. In order for individuals to choose them, new behaviours - in
other words different travel choices - need to seem:
More advantageous – for example how you perceive the costs and benefits as set out above
More ‘me’ – fit with how you see yourself and/or your aspirations
More common – increased awareness of who else is doing it
More doable – increased confidence in ability to do it yourself
The opposite is also true - if something you are doing starts to feel less of any of the above, such as
where the cost increases or where your peers aren’t doing it, such as when they start getting driving
licences.
There’s lots more information about this in a Behavioural Insights Toolkit (pdf) published by the
Department for Transport. One good example it gives is how car sharing was initially promoted as
environmentally friendly and this only attracted a minority of drivers. Car sharing became much more
popular when advertising changed to highlighted cost savings, the convenience of not having to
insure a car etc, as well as car sharing being part of modern, free-wheeling lifestyle.
Home > Thinking it through > Finding information and partners
Finding information and partners
Join up with other people
© CPRE
There are lots of resources out there already, whether publicly available information or organisations
doing things in your area.
Overview
This section covers:
types and useful sources of information, often held by other organisations you might want to
work with
other organisations that you could work in partnership with or seek support from, including
different levels of local government
how to carry out surveys of your local community.
Information
Information
There’s lots of information out there but it is easy to become swamped. It’s useful to distinguish
between the following types of information:
Historical data, both objective, such as vehicle flows, and subjective, such as people’s concerns
or priorities
Forecasts and predictions, which often try to use past trends to work out how things might turn
out in the future
Plans and policies, in particular Local Transport Plans (LTP)
Appraisal, such as Strategic Environmental Assessment, which tries to work out the impacts of
different policies.
The LTP for your area will include local data, policy and proposals so is a good place to start. It may
have limited detail in relation to your local area, however. Whenever you look through other
documents, note down any dates when they are to be revised, as this could be an opportunity to
influence them.
Don’t forget you can request information under the Freedom of Information Act or the Environmental
Information Regulations of any public body. Simply make a written request to the public body that
may hold the information stating clearly what information you are seeking. This procedure only covers
information that the public body actually holds so cannot be used simply to ask questions in order to
try to compel a body to do research for you. The Information Commissioner’s Office provides useful
information about the processes: www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public/official_information.aspx
Appraisal is a complex area that is touched upon in the making your plan section. When working out
what information might be useful to gather, it’s worth seeing if you can find baseline data for your area
so that you could in future see how much of an impact you are having.
Maps are very useful way to record information and view it but are covered separately in the mapping
section.
Government departments
The Department for Transport (DfT) leads on transport issues but it, and other government
departments, are not normally involved in local transport initiatives. Exceptions may be certain
funding competitions and pilots such as of new traffic signs, where the DfT may require follow up
reports about how well something has worked. The Highways Agency, an agency of the DfT, is the
highway authority for motorways and trunk roads, which are the ‘A’ roads marked in green on traffic
signs and most maps.
There is no national transport policy but various DfT strategies can provide useful data as well as
policy. Key documents to look out for are:
Local Transport White Paper (2011) - this sets out the overarching aims for local transport and
explains how local areas now have more freedom to do what they want
Strategic Framework for Road Safety (2011) - national road safety policy
Active Travel Strategy (2010) - strategy for walking and cycling
Rail Command Paper (2012) - sets out changes to rail ticketing and devolution of control of rail
franchises
Green Light for Better Buses (2012) - sets out reforms to bus subsidies and regulation
Much more detailed statistics are regularly updated in the statistics section of the DfT website and
now on the data.gov.uk portal. Only some of the data on these sites is broken down by local authority
area and so are not in general that useful for local transport planning.
Other useful sources of information are:
DfT’s Annual Average Traffic Flow Data, which shows estimated average traffic flows on every
section of A roads and motorways since 1999
DfT National Travel Survey, which is normally published every summer.
The Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) published useful
environmental information, including:
the UK-AIR Air Information Resource, providing air pollution levels, and
MAGIC, which provides a whole host of environmental data such as Sites of Scientific Interest
and land the public have been given the right to roam under the Countryside & Rights of Way
Act. Because of its age and the amount of data it is not the easiest map to use.
Planning policy from the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) is very important
but covered separately in the land use planning section.
Modes of transport
Besides the information available in your LTP, additional and possibly more up to date information is
available in relation to the following modes of transport.
Rail
Network Rail publishes Route Utilisation Strategies (RUSs) that provide recommendations for the
future development of train services. These include proposals for stations and can be found here:
www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/4449.aspx
Many rail franchises are being renegotiated so it is worth looking out for the franchise specification
and for bidding documents, including from Train Operating Companies (TOCs) that failed to win the
franchise. You may find some information about future plans from the TOCs that operate your local
rail franchise.
Bus, coach and taxi
Although there will be some policies and proposals covering these forms of public transport in LTPs,
they are primarily the responsibility of private operators, who you will need to check to see what they
might share with you. Be aware that some information may be commercially sensitive.
Lower tier councils license taxis and will have their own policies, though there have been proposals to
change this.
Rights of way
Lower tier councils outside inner London are required to produce a Rights of Way Improvement Plan,
which is supposed to do exactly what its name suggests. See the enhancing paths and ways section
for more details.
Internet
The range and uses of transport data on the internet is continuing to expand rapidly. The Government
has committed to making more public transport and highway data available by mid-2012. This is likely
to lead to new websites and apps that make it easier to use this data.
Google maps have an increasing range of functions and the traffic function can be useful to see
congestion on main roads. maps.google.co.uk
fixmytransport.com is a new site that allows people to register problems with public transport while
sister site www.fixmystreet.com does the same for problems with streets, such as broken paving or
faulty lights. Issues are passed onto the relevant transport operator or local authority and archived, so
these sites can be a useful source of information.
cyclescape.org is an on-line campaigning toolkit for cycle campaign groups that collates information
about problems and helps people campaign together.
Besides its road safety map, ITO World produces a wide range of visualisations using data from
OpenStreetMap: www.itoworld.com/static/mapping_and_spatial_analysis/ito_map.html
Partners
Being effective in making a difference requires working in partnership. It’s not just because you can
draw at more resources, experience and knowledge but because by getting more organisations on
board you will need to take account of their different needs and views, making you and your
proposals more representative.
Different organisations and indeed people are likely to offer different levels of support in terms of the
following roles:
partners are those organisation involved in a project or initiative that make strategic decisions
and are responsible for them
sponsors provide funds or other significant benefits in kind
volunteers offer time whether on a regular or one-off basis
supporters may only be able or willing to add their name
It can be good to offer different levels of involvement so that you can maximise involvement: even just
having a range of local businesses, voluntary organisations and local councillors coming out in
support can give you much more legitimacy.
If you have time, research a potential partner or supporter to see what might motivate them to
become involved. For example, if they have a website see if you can find if they have any public
commitments or policies. Be prepared to reconsider who you might work with as your plans develop.
Politicians and local councillors
Getting your local MP or councillor on board with your initiative or campaign can raise its profile and
gain useful influence where it matters. They may also be able to suggest other people and groups you
could work with. In some councils there is a cabinet with one councillor responsible for transport
issues, in others there will be a number of councillors on a committee covering transport. It’s worth
trying to find out which elected official(s) is or are making the key decisions on transport.
You can find which MP and councillors represent you by looking up your postcode at
www.writetothem.com
Police
You can find information about your local police force and offences in your area at the national police
portal: www.police.uk. Unfortunately the crime maps do not currently show road traffic offences, such
as speeding or careless driving.
Data on road traffic crashes is collected by the police and map showing the data from 2000 to 2010
has been published independently here by ITO World: http://map.itoworld.com
Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, also known as Community Safety Partnerships, bring
together police, other emergency services and local authorities to tackle crime, including the fear of
crime. Bad driving is often illegal driving and some partnerships cover it within their priorities but
others do not. Check local strategies and plans to find out more. There are other 300 in England
alone so contact your local authority or local police force to find out further details.
Local government
In England outside of major cities, local government is normally split into two tiers of county and
district councils, though in some areas these levels have been merged into unitary councils. The
upper tier produces a Local Transport Plan (LTP), while the lower tier produces a local plan, covering
land use. In national parks, the local National Parks Authority will be in charge of land use planning.
In cities it is more complicated and there may be a unitary council. Or there may be borough council
together with an Integrated Transport Authority (ITA - formerly Passenger Transport Executive),
Combined Authority and or a directly elected mayor. ITAs and combined authorities will normally
produce a single LTP for the whole metropolitan area. In London Transport for London implements
the Mayor’s Transport Strategy, while each London borough has a Local Implementation Plan. There
is more information about LTPs in the Making your plan section.
In some areas, such as where there is a unitary city council surrounded by a county council,
authorities have drawn up joint LTPs. A joint LTP need not cover a whole local authority area, so
could be an good idea where local travel patterns (such as travel to work areas) or national park
boundaries do not fit with local authority boundaries.
Your local authority may have other useful data, for example it might have researched various
transport proposals in your area that it has not had sufficient funding to implement. It can be difficult to
obtain this sort of information unless you know who to ask and what for. You could try to find out
through officials, searching for relevant committee reports on your council’s website or making a
request for information in writing. Campaigners in Totnes produced a list of traffic studies to help
inform their campaigning.
Table showing structure of local government
Upper tier
Lower tier
Key functions
Rural
Local Transport
Plans, highways,
non-rail
County
passenger
transport
Land use
planning, parking,
District
rights of way,
taxis, air pollution *
Local council, or
Defra: list of
simply ‘parish
Parish, town,
powers and duties
council’ as
neighbourhood
of parish councils
shorthand
Rural/urban
Urban
Unitary
In some areas: Combined
Authority or Integrated
Transport Authority
[merge with
cell above]
(Metropolitan) borough
council ** or city council
As rural or
urban
Rarely, Parish Council, and
following Localism Act
2011 possibly ward or
neighbourhood forum.
* The Government is considering transferring responsibilities for air pollution and taxi to upper tier
councils.
** In practice Borough Councils in urban areas pass their transport powers up to city-region level
authorities.
Parishes and neighbourhoods
The lowest tier in local government can range from a parish council serving a hamlet and controlling a
precept of a few thousand pounds per year to a town council for tens of thousands of people and
controlling a precept of over a million pounds per year. There are about 8,500 parish and town
councils but because they do not tend to exist in urban areas, only cover a third of the population.
In previous centuries there was much more power and responsibilities at the local level. Road
maintenance, for example, was the responsibility of the parish. Schemes in some counties have
reintroduced ‘parish lengthsmen’, who undertake basic maintenance on roads, or rangers on cycle
routes. By having local knowledge, such as which drains are prone to blocking or which trees
overhang, they are better able to keep the highway network in good repair.
The Localism Act 2011 increased powers for parish councils through a ‘general power of competence’
and gave them neighbourhood planning powers. For areas where there is no parish or town council a
neighbourhood forum can be set up to make neighbourhood plans. The full implications of these
reforms are not yet clear, particularly in relation to transport, but there is scope for considerable
innovation.
More information:
CLG: introduction to neighbourhood planning
CPRE: Planning Help [add link to neighbourhood section in new website]
National Association of Local Councils
Local organisations
Besides CPRE, other national organisations with an interest in transport issues may have local
groups or volunteers in your area. Look out for:
Campaign for Better Transport - formerly Transport 2000
Civic societies, often attached to Civic Voice
CTC - formerly the Cyclists Touring Club
Local cycle groups, including those part of Cyclenation
Friends of the Earth
Living Streets - formerly the Pedestrians Association
Railfuture - formerly the Railway Development Society
Ramblers - promoting walking, particularly on rights of way
Sustrans - sustainable travel charity with local office rather than volunteers
You should not simply seek to work with groups that have a transport or environmental focus. You
should also consider involvement with:
trip generators such as visitor attractions, schools, businesses, as they may already have
produced a travel plan or be able to help secure funding for a transport improvement
bus and train operators
neighbourhood watch groups
residents’ groups
local Women’s Institute
farmers and landowners
businesses and trade associations such as chambers of commerce
local churches and faith groups
local environmental organisations
student unions
local sports clubs and interest groups.
Community website http://yoursquaremile.co.uk provides a list of local organisations that have
registered with it and their websites.
Creating a survey
Surveys are not just a great way to find out about the transport needs of people in your local area,
they can also be useful to engage people and encourage them to become involved. So don’t forget to
include questions at the end asking if people are interested in offering help with your project. Once
you have got people thinking about their concerns, they are more likely to offer to want to make a
difference and help out.
In the same way that it’s easier to set up a stall at someone else’s event, it’s easier to include
transport questions in, for example, a parish or local residents survey than set up your own transport
survey. More people are likely to respond too. If you are doing your own survey, it can be tempting to
ask lots of questions but the more there are, the less people are likely to complete the survey. Try not
to have more than a dozen questions or fewer if part of someone else’s survey..
On-line survey tools such as surveymonkey.com can make it very easy to set up a survey and
analyse the results. By being internet based you are likely to exclude those who either do not have
easy access or do not feel confident using the internet. One way round this is to offer a paper version
of the on-line survey and then add the results from them on-line. To get the highest response rate, it’s
best to go round door-by-door and complete a paper survey that you can add on-line afterwards.
Although this can be very time consuming, trying to make face-to-face contact at least once can
maximise public involvement.
Do try the survey out on a few members of the public before you finalise it, as questions usually
benefit from some fine-tuning. It's generally good practice to provide a list of answers but also leave
an other box for people to add their own choices.
Questions you could consider asking are
Which forms of transport do you use? Most days, at least weekly, sometimes, never
Would you consider changing how you travel? No, a few trips, many trips
What would encourage you to change how you travel?
What do you think the main transport priorities should be in your local area?
Which particular locations should be the biggest priority to improve and why?
Would you be able to help out with our initiative, if so what could you offer?
Home > Thinking it through > Shaping routes and networks
Shaping routes and networks
Which way to go?
© CPRE
Understanding how the road network and also different forms of transport can best join up is key if
you want to plan well.
Overview
People want convenient door-to-door journeys by public transport. They also want streets and lanes
that are attractive and pleasant to spend time in. Unfortunately transport has often planned in a
haphazard way: rail and bus services often don’t join up well, while heavy traffic ends up rat-running
through residential streets and along country lanes. Other northern European countries tend to do
better through more systematic planning and greater integration. In particular this involves treating
minor roads and minor bus routes differently.
For public transport, rather than having different forms of transport and different routes trying to
compete with each other, this can mean developing integrated networks where different forms of
transport complementing each other, such by changing services on smaller routes into dedicated
feeder services. This helps tackle the problem of having some buses running three-quarters empty for
most of their routes, which is neither environmentally friendly nor cost effective. The downside is that
people may have to change services more often but where timetabling and ticketing are integrated,
the benefits significantly outweigh the disadvantages.
In relation to the road network, this means moving away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to road
design and management. Instead different types of roads with different functions are categorised and
treated differently, and thought is given how they function as a network, an approach that is
sometimes called road or network hierarchies. In practice this makes it clearer what type of road you
are on and what its function is. Streets tend to be lower down the hierarchy are primarily for access
and tend to have lower speed limits and less signage, while different types of road users are
encouraged to share the same space. Roads higher up the hierarchy tend to be for longer distance
traffic and have higher speed limits and segregate different types of users, except where they pass
through town centres, for example.
This integrated approach also joins up with the rights of way network and cycle tracks better, so that
there are safe routes to schools, stations etc. as well as circular leisure routes. New powers for local
authorities mean these continental approaches can now more easily be applied in this country.
Thinking differently about public transport
There are a number of problems with bus transport, which often lead to an inefficient use of buses
and subsidy. Routes, location of bus stops and timetables are often based on historic patterns with
only the occasional incremental change being made when a fundamental recasting of services is
what is needed.
Because different operators run different services, they often don’t join up well, whether in terms of
timetables or physical distance between stops. Using different operators’ services, even on the same
route can require different tickets. Gaps in services mean that public transport is not viable for many
journeys - these can be gaps in time, such as a lack of an evening or weekend service, or in space,
where there is no regular service for suburbs and villages.
‘Milkround’ or ‘wandering minstrel’ services are sometimes created to ensure that areas keep some
form of bus service. Because they are far from direct, such services do not offer competitive journey
times compared to cars, so they appeal only to a small proportion of the population who have no
alternative. The lack of economies of scale they can require heavy subsidies. In rural areas there is
an increasing shift to ‘Demand Responsive Transport’, which is often available to particular classes of
people, such as local residents or those with disabilities. The result is often managed decline of an
increasingly fractured public transport system that makes it harder to live without a car.
One ticket, one network
On the continent, a ‘one ticket, one network’ philosophy has transformed public transport. Of course
this already exists in London but other countries have shown it can work in towns and even rural
areas not just large cities.
What this means is one ticket, often with a simple to understand zonal fare system, can be used
across different forms of public transport, whether train, bus, taxi-bus or even boat. Simplified network
maps show how the different lines fit together, while services are recast into convenient interchange
points and carefully designed timetables make it easy to change between different routes and forms
of transport.
This approach recognises the need for cross-subsidisation - the more profitable routes at peak times
subsidise services in evenings and those to more sparsely populated areas. This means better
services are more viable and everyone benefits. Because many people have a weekly or monthly
pass, public transport operators have a steady, guaranteed source of income to invest further with.
Getting there
Securing a continental approach in England is not easy due to bus deregulation, which means that
you will need to secure the buy-in of a range of commercial operators as well as local authorities, but
it can be done. Three examples stand out.
The Lincolnshire Interconnect bus service is made up of regular Interconnect services between towns
which are supplemented by Callconnect services. The Callconnect services have to be booked in
advance and feed passengers into the main network as well as to places where there is not enough
demand to justify a regular service.
The Network St Albans is a partnership to improve travel options, particularly bus services. Bringing
together the local councils, public transport operators, the university, business groups and community
groups, it has developed a zonal fare system and an integrated network of public transport services
with simple maps using a ‘quality partnership’.
A £2.5m, a three year smart ticketing pilot scheme was launched in Norfolk in 2013. This covers all
bus operators, including smaller rural operators and includes an E-Purse (a smart card you can
charge up with cash), a Norfolk Dayrider pass and a youth (16-19) discount ticket. If successful, this
could be rolled out nationally, possibly before the the pilot period ends.
Further national changes to bus subsidies are due and this means that it is difficult to plan ahead. So
some local authorities may wish to wait to let other areas trial new ways of delivering bus services.
Step by step
Develop feeder and out-of-hour services
Bus and rail networks work best when there is a core network that has feeder services bringing
passengers to and from it. This may mean truncating minor, less frequent services so that rather than
going the full way into town, they stop at a bus stop on a busier route. Because they will no longer be
duplicating other services, these feeder services can then be made to run more regularly, so as to
increase the number of journeys that can be made to and from communities.
Similarly although demand tends to be less on busier routes in the evenings and can be at weekends,
a lack of service outside core hours means public transport is not viable for many social activities.
See the extending types of bus services page for ways to develop bus services at the margins.
Don’t forget to improve access to bus stops and railway stations by other means, such as better
walking and cycling routes as well as cycle parking. Outside urban areas, particularly where there is a
large catchment area, consider options for car parking. See the improving streets and managing car
parking sections.
Multi-operator ticketing
Seek multi-operator ticketing agreements for public transport in your area. This is not just about
ensuring there are smartcard readers on buses but about integrated ticketing. In other words securing
new ticket types, such as daily or weekly passes that are valid on all operators, or even return tickets
that allow you to travel with one operator and back the other way with another one.
See if railways are being refranchised in your area - if so, it might be possible to make it a condition of
the franchise that there is rail-bus ticketing. Over 200 towns offer ‘plusbus’ tickets, which allows
unlimited use of buses in the departure and arrival points of rail tickets. This is only available as a
piggyback ticket on a point-to-point rail journey, however, less flexible than travelcards that exist in
London or the continent, which allow the use of any local rail services within zones that have been
paid for.
More information:
List of integrated ticketing schemes in UK - Journey Solutions
Building better bus services: multi-operator ticketing - Department for Transport
Create a network map and brand
London’s tube and its map is probably the most well known public transport system in the world.
While rather smaller and less famous, Network St Albans is a good example of what can be done in a
medium sized town to simplify bus route information and help promote it. See the influencing travel
choices and creating travel information sections for more ideas.
Fine-tune timetables
After perfecting watchmaking, it’s no surprise the Swiss have made timetabling into a science. Here
are three key principles:
turn up and go services on key routes during weekday daytime - if services run at least every
ten minutes then people do not need to rely on timetables
clockface timetables - on less frequent services, ensure that they depart from stops at the same
time each hour, so that the times are easier to remember and connections can be planned more
easily
pulse timetables - where frequencies are lower, consider timing all services to come to a hub
and leave at similar times, allowing people to interchange in different directions.
Recast services
Because services in towns tend to be commercially operated, they can be more difficult to influence
unless there is a voluntary or quality partnership in place that brings together operators with the local
authority. Ideas to consider for bus routes include:
cross-town services - by having what are also known as ‘pendulum’ services, in that they swing
across and back again, these help link up different areas
speed up main routes - make core, high capacity routes more direct and focus bus priority
measures on them
differentiate services - just as railways have express services and stopping trains, consider
applying similar principles to bus services with feeder and main routes
simplify routes - rather than having lots of different route variations, try to have the same route
and then add feeder services and interchanges as appropriate
Home > Thinking it through > Combining different measures
Combining different measures
Joining up different transport options
© Campaign for Better Transport
Combining different types of travel measures into a package is the best way to secure lasting change
Overview
It’s quite possible to work through this toolkit and come up with your own carefully prioritised
proposals for your local area from scratch. Many people will, however, simply want to get on with
some quick improvements and the suggestions below can allow you to work out packages of
measures quickly. Even for those who do want to plan in detail, this section should give helpful
pointers as to what measures you might want to consider combining so as to maximise your impact
and effectiveness.
This section is broken down into three parts:
by type of area - how priorities may differ depending on type of area and size
by objective - ideas as to how to tailor priorities to local objectives, such as helping the local
economy and tackling climate change
levels of achievement - different levels of ambition you could aim for over time
In practice there will obviously be an overlap in terms of between different types of area and objective
but the suggestions below are designed to get you started. Another useful source of ideas and
information is this list of successful local authority bids for the Local Sustainable Transport Fund.
By type of area
Sparsely populated rural parish
Although challenging because things are further to get to, there’s lots of scope to reduce the need to
travel and to share journeys made by car.
Protect and promote local shops and services to reduce the need to travel. Also consider the scope
for mobile services such as doctor and library and delivery of local food. Perhaps you could combine
some of these in a community hub. Because community bonds are likely to be stronger, lift share
schemes, whether on-line or on a local noticeboard, are more likely to be successful. You may also
want to consider cycle maintenance, training and an electric bike pool schemes to give people
another option for some local journeys. Improving the rights of way network may make it more useful
for utility as well as leisure journeys.
Consider producing a travel plan with operators for the nearest rail station and regular bus stops to
improve access to them. A demand responsive minibus or taxibus could be part of this. Reduce
danger on the roads by introducing 40mph on minor roads and ensure motor traffic without a local
destination does not cut through unsuitable roads. A summary of travel information could feature in a
local newsletter and on a parish website.
Village
Although similar to a sparse parish there will be more scope, depending on size and situation, to
include some additional measures that feature in towns.
Local walking, cycling and public transport maps would help make people aware of different travel
options. 20mph should be introduced on primarily residential roads and possibly also on a central
street if it is not a major through route. If there is enough demand, there may be scope to have one
car club vehicle.
Cycle parking stands could be installed outside local shops and at schools and a safe route to the
nearest town or station progressed. Any school, business and visitor attraction travel plans could be
compared to look for potential for co-operation, perhaps helping produce a village travel plan. A
village minibus could offer a range of demand responsive services, linking regularly to more frequent
public transport services as well as other local destinations as needed.
Town
Building on the ideas for a village, the proposals for towns will depend on whether they are in a
remote area or near to a larger city.
If there is no rail station nearby, consider ways to ensure a high quality bus or coach connection to
the nearest rail hub, one that will allow people to take a bicycle on. There should be enough demand
for a few car clubs and a signed cycle route network covering the area. The shopping area should
offer good access by and conditions for people whether in buses, on cycle or on foot.
Urban ward or social housing estate
Although there may already be public transport services and cycle facilities, you may need to help
people use them as well as improve them. Improving streets to help them function better as public
spaces will also be important, particularly for people without their own outside spaces.
Managing the volume and speed of motor traffic will be vital, such as through 20 mph and home
zones.Travel options could be improved through a cycle repair project and secure cycle parking, as
well as a community bus/taxi for evenings, whether for shift work or social trips, plus setting up a car
club for more affordable motoring. As with the other options, providing a range of locally specific
information will help people understand the different options available and their respective benefits.
By objective
Reducing social deprivation
Not only do people in lower income brackets have to spend a much higher proportion of their income
on getting about, they are more likely to live next to main roads and suffer from air and noise pollution
or be involved in road crashes.
Lowering speed limits is a good way to reduce the negative impacts of traffic, while reallocating space
from cars can create more accessible public space for kids to play or people without gardens to enjoy.
Setting up car clubs can help provide affordable access to cars while cycle training and maintenance
can make low cost cycling more of an option. Promotion and information should not be forgotten
either as there may be hidden barriers for disadvantaged groups, such as a lack of knowledge or
confidence.
Stimulating the local economy
Increasing the proportion of money that recirculates in local shops and services is vital for a healthy
local economy, while encouraging visitors to spend helps too.
By promoting what the local area offers and reducing trip lengths, such as by encouraging walking
and cycling, there’s more chance people will spend more locally. Local shops will never be able to
compete with supermarkets on choice but they can offer other advantages such as convenience and
personal services. Reducing clutter and making high streets more attractive can help as can setting
up a local delivery service to compete with the home delivery offered by major shops further away.
Shared taxi services can provide local jobs for drivers and an affordable way to get home after a local
night out.
Improving public health
Many people find it difficult to incorporate enough exercise into their daily lives. Increasing the
proportion of people who walk and cycle regularly is recognised by health professionals as the easiest
way to reduce spiralling rates of obesity and related health problems.
It is important not simply to increase the walking and cycling by people who are already active. This
means targeting older people and children as well as habitual drivers. Setting up a diverse
programme of events, whether treasure hunts for kids on local walking and cycle routes or health
walks for older people, improving walking and cycling routes and providing information can all help.
Increasing access to fresh and healthy local food, such as by setting up a delivery service, can also
play a key role in improving public health.
Protecting the natural environment
Transport infrastructure can be attractive and in harmony with the natural environment: think of
Victorian viaducts or undisturbed habitats along railway lines. Equally roads littered with traffic sign
clutter and roadkill show this is far from always the case.
In rural areas, more wildlife is killed on minor than major roads: while busy roads are often a barrier to
wildlife, animals may be unaware of the risk on quieter roads until it is too late. Managing speed and
traffic flows on minor roads is important, as is preventing the need for road-building which can also
fragment habitats. In built-up areas, replacing some space for parking with planters and trees can
green streets. Not only does this help calm traffic, it also can increase biodiversity and reduce heat
build-up in the summer.
Reducing climate change and reliance on oil
Transport is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gas emissions and the only sector whose
emissions are growing. It is also the area of the economy most vulnerable to knock-on effects from oil
shortages.
Most of the measures in the toolkit help reduce emissions but measures to reduce the speed and
amount of motor traffic - such as access and parking restrictions - will have the most impact,
particularly as these help ‘lock in’ reductions of emissions. Otherwise space freed up on the roads
may be filled by other motor vehicles, meaning no net reduction in emissions. Increasing the use of
local facilities helps reduce the need to travel, particularly by motorised transport. Increasing the
proportion of local transport that uses alternative fuel or electricity, with public transport services and
freight transport being the priority, ensures that the community can keep functioning if there are oil
price spikes. It can also create local jobs such as by reusing cooking oil.
Levels of achievement
The packages below start with a focus on the planning and influencing sections of the toolkit because
implementing physical changes tends to take longer. Although the bronze level could be achieved just
by a local campaign group, anything beyond this is likely to need to be led by a local council, whether
at parish or district level.
Bronze
A community that has achieved the bronze level has the basics in place to build upon. Whether this
level can be achievable within eighteen months to two years will depend on size of community,
number of volunteers and support for the local authority and businesses as well as the starting point.
Planning
Influencing
Basic plan drawn up setting out objectives and some targets
All highways (including street names), paths, cycle routes and rights of way
mapped on OpenStreetMap (OSM) within 5 miles
Summary of localised travel information (timetables and costs) available online and to print
Cycling and simplified public transport maps available on-line and with printed
copies on display at key locations
Community Speed Watch scheme in operation
Cycle training and maintenance available locally
Promotional events and publicity
Improving
20mph on residential roads and town/village centre
Sufficient cycle parking at schools and shops
Clutter cut by removing unnecessary traffic signing and lining
Taxibus or similar for evening or low demand routes
Car club vehicle and cycle equipment to borrow
Silver
Building on bronze, silver ensures that a community delivers existing many different examples of best
practice. The interaction of a range of measures promoting and improving sustainable travel options
will lead to a noticeable change in travel patterns. An energetic team of volunteers able to offer
regular time if not a part-time paid position will be needed.
Planning
Influencing
Improving
Plan setting out road hierarchy and active travel networks
Main points of interest, speed limits, off road route surface quality and public
transport mapped on OSM
Influencing planning applications through Local Plan (and Neighbourhood
Plan) policies on sustainable travel
Programme of events during most of year and promotion
Widespread eco-driving and cycle training
Partnerships with local shops (buy local), businesses and attractions (travel
planning)
Personal Travel Planning for individual households
Lower speed limits across the area with quiet lane designation in rural areas
Car club and e-bikes pools
Safe routes to main trip generators in community, e.g. school, station,
shopping street
Redesign of some streets and removal of through motor traffic from
unsuitable roads
Development of integrated bus and rail routes on some corridors
Gold
Gold firms up the measures in the previous levels and sets out a vision for a level of best practice not
yet seen in this country. This is not just up to now best practice tends to have only been for a limited
time and not across a wide range of forms of travel. It is also because some of the ideas,
technologies and local powers required are recent.
Planning
Influencing
Improving
Plan integrated as section of Local Transport Plan and aligned with
neighbourhood plans
Detailed coverage by OSM including most points of interest and surface
conditions on off road routes
Area wide travel planning integrating individual travel plans in businesses,
schools and other trip generators
Co-ordination of travel plans with a full-time person
Integrated public transport network with good coverage by bus, demand
responsive transport and rail
Dense network of safe, convenient walking and cycling routes
Local freight delivery partnerships for ‘last-mile’ delivery and community hubs
Mixture of electric vehicles and those powered by alternative fuels
Redesign of streets into home zones
Filtered permeability for residential and minor rural roads
Making it happen
Home > Making it happen > Mapping what’s in your area
Mapping what’s in your area
Mapping is as useful for better planning as it is for producing useful, local maps
OpenStreetMap, the wikipedia of mapping
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Overview
Maps are a really powerful way to work with information, particularly in relation to transport and travel.
Although there are a range of maps available for free on the internet, at best these allow you to plot
your own route to a copy. In the same way that Wikipedia, a collaborative or ‘crowd-sourced’
encyclopaedia, is revolutionising knowledge, so OpenStreetMap, a crowd-sourced map, is doing the
same for geographical information. The difference is like being sent a document as scanned image
rather than as a file containing text. With a document sent as text you can cut and paste words,
change the formatting and add to it.
Cartography, the science of map-making, is not just about accurate classification and recording of
geographical data but also carefully thinking about how to display data on a map. It’s important to
think about both of these elements: showing too much information can make a particular map
confusing and difficult to use. OpenStreetMap enables crowd-sourcing of the classification (known as
‘tagging’) of data and complete freedom as to what data is used in a map and the style.
You can see different styles of maps on www.openstreetmap.org by clicking on the menu in the top
right to see a general map, a cycling map and a public transport map. These different maps are
produced from the same underlying map data. You can see how it is classified through tags on the
map features page.
Benefits
The advantages of using OpenStreetMap compared to other on-line maps include:
it can be updated much more quickly, because content is added by users, and that includes
adding new concepts like electric vehicle charging points in addition to adding new routes or
buildings
the lack of technical or legal restrictions on the data (beyond basically ‘share and share alike’)
gives much more freedom and flexibility
being able to record much more detail relevant to your local area or needs, such as bad path
surfaces, speed limits and shops selling fresh fruit and vegetables
being able to produce your own types of maps, tailored specifically for your local area or a
certain need, such as showing level routes suitable for wheelchair users or areas that would be
left stranded by bus route cuts
being able to use the data in ‘mashups’, such as highlighting bus or rail stops where there is no
mobile phone coverage or catchment areas where there are no safe routes to schoolsbeing able
to use the data for tools such as on-line journey planners.
ITO map visualisations gives examples of the types of different things you can show while
Cyclestreets, which has proved much more successful than the Government’s cycle journey planner,
shows how detailed information can help people plan journeys better.
Other sections of the toolkit give you ideas on how to use OpenStreetMap, for example:
to plan better, such as being able to visualise different networks for different forms of travel or
speed limits, which could make it easier to secure funding to make improvements - see shaping
routes and networks section
to create information, such as local walking, cycling and public transport maps - see creating
information section
Range of options
In the same way that Wikipedia has more articles on popular culture than neuroscience,
OpenStreetMap has much more detailed data in places like central London and tourist honeypots
than most suburban or rural areas. Most roads are covered in the UK, however. You can find more
information about completeness of the mapping in your area on the OpenStreetMap wiki page on
completeness.
You will need to decide how much you want to prioritise adding detailed information to your local area
versus filling in gaps in the surrounding area. There’s not much point recording the position of every
house number on your street if useful routes to neighbouring areas are not recorded.
At a starting point you should ensure the following are recorded within the surrounding five miles:
roads, including names (so that people can use journey planners)
bus routes that operate at least daily (note all bus stops are already marked)
rights of way plus walking and cycle routes that have direction signs (such as long distances
paths and national cycle network)
Once that is done, consider adding:
traffic signals, crossings and mini-roundabouts
speed limits and traffic orders, such as one-way streets
car parks and secure cycle parking, cycle shops and hire
key ‘Points of Interest’ such as schools
large buildings and land types such as woodland, as these help people navigate
the presence of footways by the side of roads outside urban areas
surface conditions of useful rights of way and obstructions such as gates and stiles
Again the ITO map visualisations show different versions of maps highlighting particular information
such as surfaces as well as highlighting potential errors in the base data.
Step by step
There is a lot of information already on the web about adding data to OpenStreetMap, which is
frequently being improved, so it is easier here to provide pointers to it rather than try to explain it here.
The fundamental rule is that you must not rely in any way on copyrighted data when you make
additions to OpenStreetMap. Instead you can:
from a computer, trace features, such as over out of copyright (more than 50 years old)
Ordnance Survey maps or unrestricted satellite imagery, both of which are provided in free
mapping tools, such as Potlach 2 (see below)
when you're out and about, take a GPS trace or mark particular points, whether shops or
waymarkers on a path, using a free app on a GPS smartphone
or combining both, by printing out a section of OpenStreetMap and then mark missing street
names or points of interest when you’re out and about. These can then be added to the map at
another time or by other people, just remember to write neatly. This can be a good way of
involving volunteers who don’t feel comfortable adding data to the map using a computer.
A very good start is the new Get mapping guide, produced to encourage people in Scotland to map
cycle routes. If you need more information, the OpenStreetMap wiki is quite comprehensive. The
beginner’s guide, which is highlighted on the front page of the wiki is worth looking at first.
If you are able to use a basic graphics program, you will find adding data relatively easy using Potlach
2, an on-line editor tool accessible from OpenStreetMap by clicking on the edit button. There are also
how-to videos linked from inside Potlach 2.
Team up
Local authorities are likely to have data they could publish as open data provide but do make sure
there there are no legal restrictions attached to it before adding it. Authorities such as Hampshire
County Council are already releasing large datasets, such as Rights of Way information. You can find
out more about your local authority's progress in opening up data at Openly Local. The Open
Government Licence can be used by public sector bodies when they release data.
See if you can involve your local bus company to provide traces of their routes to improve coverage of
public transport. Local walking or cycling groups may be able to help to map out missing Rights of
Way in your area. Schools are worth contacting too as improving mapping of the local area could be a
good project for geography lessons.
Home > Making it happen > Linking transport with planning
Linking transport with planning
Centralising shops and services makes walking harder
© Campaign for Better Transport
Decisions about where new development goes can have big impacts on travel patterns as well as
provide funding for local transport initiatives.
Overview
The planning process considers economic, social and environmental issues up to a generation into
the future. Buildings can last much longer than this, so it is important to make sure they are in the
right place and fit for the future. Failures to think through these issues can be expensive to put right.
For example, new health centres built on the edge of town away from public transport and without
safe access to walk or cycle to can be costly to run because of specialised transport needed to get
people there.
Planning is a whole subject in itself and our sister site, Planning Help, provides lots more information.
Range of options
Options are
influence the local plan for your area
influence or create a neighbourhood plan
influence a decision for a specific development
ensure a development keeps to planning conditions, for example in relation to lorry access
There's advice on all these different stages on CPRE's Planning Help website.
Benefits
Because planning covers so much, there are many different benefits which include:
Shape the pattern of development in your area: places with higher density mixed used
development can make walking, cycling and public the norm
Protect land and routes that could increase travel options in the future, such as disused railway
lines and wharves
Identify ways to expand walking, cycling and public transport networks and give them weight by
including them in a plan
Secure the viability of local shops and services by restricting developments such as major new
supermarkets
Promote the adoption of travel plans for new buildings - see the travel plans for organisations
section
Increase the proportion of journeys made by sustainable travel modes by managing car parking
Secure funding from new developments to improve travel choices in your area, such as car
sharing, new walking and cycling routes and contributions to bus services costs
Neighbourhood planning offers particular benefits too:
Allow people build sustainable travel infrastructure, such as walking and cycling paths or
external cycle lockers, without needing planning permission by creating Neighbourhood
Development Orders
Create a neighbourhood design code to help create a high quality public realm that prioritises
those on foot and cycle
Step by step
While the steps you should take very much depend on which part of the planning process you are
getting involved in, if you work through the ideas below, you will have a much better understanding of
what you need to do.
Top tips to get you started
Ensure that local land use and transport planning are effectively integrated. This means
examining the pattern of development proposed in your local plan. Major development should
be focused where there is good public transport access and densities should be high enough to
support local shops and other facilities within walking distance. Making rural communities more
self-contained or by increasing density around a railway station so as to increase the
justification for a more frequent service can also help. This approach reduces the need to travel,
particularly by car, and is sometimes known as ‘smart growth’ – see these principles for more
information.
Compare your local pland with you Local Transport Plan (LTP) which sets out transport policies
and proposals. Be aware that in areas where there are two tier authorities, the upper tier
authority will be responsible for transport and the lower tier authority for planning. Check the
LTP timetable to find out about opportunities to influence it.
Set your ambitions for modal shift. English planning guidance calls for ‘fullest possible use’ of
public transport and physically active travel. These ways of getting about, particularly bus use
and cycling, make up a smaller proportion of journeys in the UK compared to other northern
European countries - see the ‘modal shift’ sub-section below. So think about how this might be
able to be changed during the period covered by the local plan, differentiating if needed
between settlements and open country, or indeed particular developments. What bus services
or cycle routes would be needed to make a big difference?
Consider the list of transport proposals, such as for new stations and any road-building. These
are likely to have major impacts both on transport demand and land use patterns, so consider
whether there are better alternatives, including smaller scale schemes. These may be set out in
an LTP, local plan or Infrastructure Development Plans.
Identify road hierarchies so that you have some criteria to judge the impacts of any additional
traffic from new developments. This is key to ensure that development does not exceed
environmental limits, such as the capacity of minor roads to carry motor traffic, the need to
reduce air pollution in Air Quality Management Areas or protect areas of tranquillity from traffic
noise. See the shaping routes and networks section for more information.
Don't forget travel planning! Travel plans can be the catalyst for big changes. Often smaller
developments are excluded from travel plans, however. See if you can get a policy to ensure
smaller developments take part in community level travel planning. See the travel plans for
places section for more information.
Modal shares
The UK is the most car dependent country in Europe after Lithuania, Iceland and Norway and the
position is as bad in relation to freight depending on road transport. Only 6% of journeys are made by
bus and coach – this is known as a ‘modal share’ – and, excluding London, the share is lower still. In
terms of passenger travel, the UK has a relatively high modal share for rail – though again less good
once the special case of London is included. As a result of the major investment being made in the
rail network, capacity should double by the early 2030s.
With just 2% of UK journeys being made by cycle, compared to 12% in Germany (in rural areas 8%),
18% in Denmark and 27% in the Netherlands, there is also a huge potential to increase cycling.
Munich has for example increased cycling’s share from 6 % in 1996 to 17% of journeys in 2011, while
Germany is aiming to increase rural cycling to 13% of journeys by 2020. German planning for ‘towns
of short trips’ – in other words promoting dense, mixed use development to reduce the average length
of journeys so that they are easier to cycle or walk – is key to this.
It is important therefore to plan for the ‘fullest possible use’ of walking, cycling and public transport in
both plan-making and decision taking. So you should look carefully at transport assessments for new
developments. Simply relying on extrapolating previous trends into the future is unsuited to this: the
possibilities of new technologies such as electric bikes, car sharing and public transport smart cards
are potential game changers.
Policies and development proposal should consider ‘relative accessibility’ by different means of
transport so as to build in comparative advantages for sustainable modes over driving. This concept
is included in Planning Policy Wales but not the briefer NPPF. What this means is that rather than
simply checking to ensure a new development could be reached by bus or cycle, or engaging in
promoting the use of public transport, the relative attractiveness of more sustainable travel choices
should be improved. This may mean something simple like ensuring cycle parking and bus stops are
closer to entrances than car parking or more complicated traffic management schemes.
For example, in the Dutch city of Groningen, where 60% of trips are cycled (the highest cycling modal
share in Europe), through careful planning, such as the use of the principle of 'filtered permeability',
the average crow flies distance that can be reached in 10 minutes is 2.4 km by bicycle compared with
1.6km by car. New residential development should be planned in this way to make walking and
cycling the norm for shorter journeys, such as by maximising route choice for these modes while not
allowing people to drive through.
Transport infrastructure
New transport infrastructure is likely to be a very significant influence on the location of new
development as well as on modal shares. Besides checking your local plan and Local Transport Plan,
see if there is an Infrastructure Development Plan, which sets out priorities for use of Community
Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding. Local Transport Boards are due to draw up their initial list of
priorities for investment by July 2013. These may well draw upon other sources of funding such as
CIL and New Homes Bonus. Make sure these different plans, which are drawn up by separately from
local development plans and LTPs, are joined up.
Where a settlement or business park is increased in size, car trip rates should not simply be
extrapolated to justify road-building. The increase may mean that new bus services or cycle route
infrastructure will become viable. Some authorities take a ‘trip credit’ approach, where developers
offset new trips from their development by providing better walking, cycling and public transport
facilities for existing journeys, so as to aim for no net change in motor traffic levels. New and wider
roads tend to generate increased motor traffic, so should be the last resort. If they can be justified on
this basis, ensure that there are demand management measures to lock the benefits of the additional
capacity, such as bus or cycle lanes and traffic calming, for example of streets that have been
bypassed.
The NPPF highlights the need to protect options that could be critical to widen transport choice, such
as reopening railway lines and wharves, as well as providing new routes for walking and cycling (41).
Make sure that local plans protect such opportunities.
Road hierarchies
Some local plans refer to functional road hierarchies, which, where they exist, are usually set out in
LTPs. Traditionally the relevance of these in planning has been to restrict frontage access on higher
tier roads. This is because of the safety risk of drivers turning off or onto busy roads with fast-moving
traffic. There is also a need to protect the character of lower tier roads, such as residential streets and
country lanes, from increasing flows of motor traffic. Lower tier roads are crucial for walking, cycling
and, in rural areas, activities such as horse riding.
In some cases, higher tier roads may be a ‘mixed priority route’, for example where a main road
passes through a town or village centre so that there are place functions (shopping, social activities)
as well as a movement function. While guard rails may have been used in the past, best practice now
seeks a better balance of these functions, such as by 20 mph speed limits and de-cluttering.
You may wish to encourage the designation of certain roads as particularly sensitive, so as to make it
harder for new developments to lead to negative traffic impacts on them. This could be through
policies relating to minor roads that are in designated landscapes or which are useful routes for
walking and cycling.
Neighbourhood plans
Even if there is no road hierarchy in a local (transport) plan, you could seek to include these in
neighbourhood plans. Similarly neighbourhood plans could include neighbourhood development
orders to make it easier to install cycle lockers and design codes to increase walking and cycling,
while reducing clutter.
Where neighbourhood plans are in place, communities will receive 25% of CIL, some of which could
be used for transport measures. For example, developments below a certain size do not require travel
plans – packages of measures to promote sustainable travel. But the cumulative impact of smaller
developments can be significant. One way round this could be to encourage smaller developments to
contribute to neighbourhood level travel planning.
More information
Masterplanning Checklist for Sustainable Transport in New Developments. Transport for Quality of
Life - a great guide to ensuring bigger developments make sustainable travel the norm
Thriving Cities: Integrated land use and transport planning. Transport for Quality of Life - good advice
on how to join up transport and land use planning
Planning for sustainable travel, Chartered Institute of Highways & Transport - a site dedicated to
better planning
Manual for Streets, Department for Transport & CLG - sets out new principles for better design of
streets
Home > Making it happen > Finding funding
Finding funding
If you look hard enough you can find it
© Campaign for Better Transport
There's no denying budgets are tight but if you know where to look, you can find new opportunities for
funding.
Overview
Key funding sources are:
local government - grants from local authority or parish council
planning system - contributions from developers
revenue streams from transport - such as parking charges, fares or hire charges
contributions from businesses and other local bodies - either sponsorship or for partnership
working to deliver their travel plan commitments, for example
grant making funders - such as the National Lottery and local charities
If you are seeking funding you will normally need to make sure that your bid fits with the criteria of the
particular body you are seeking funding from: this might mean you need to approach more than one
funder to fund different parts of your project or plan. You are more likely to raise money if you bid from
a range of different bodies rather than try to obtain everything from just one. If funders can see that
another body has already granted you funding, then that will give you greater credibility.
Some projects have valued volunteer contributions in their bids and reports by working out how much
they would need to have been paid at the minimum wage. This can go some way to showing that a
project is supported by a range of sources. Volunteers are valuable and may be able indeed keen to
help out for specific tasks. But relying on volunteers in the long-term can be difficult, particularly for
managing a project or initiative, which is why some paid help for run of the mill tasks like admin can
be so useful. Partner organisations may be able to offer a contribution in terms of staff time. This
could be very valuable in helping to secure the longevity of a project, making it easier to secure
external funding.
Based on normal accounting principles, funding is often divided up into capital - investment such as in
new or improved infrastructure or equipment (e.g. a new cycle path or a minibus) - and revenue such as the cost of paying for drivers or fuel. If you are bidding for capital, you may need to show how
long-term maintenance as well revenue costs will be covered.
Potential funders
Local government
Government funding is normally paid to local authorities from different departments. A big change
since 2010 has been the removal of ring-fencing, meaning there are fewer constraints as to how
different funding streams can be spent.
The main source of local authority funding is the block grant from the Department of Communities and
Local Government (CLG), which is supplemented by council tax and business rates. In relation to
transport, funding from the DfT has been simplified from 26 funding streams to just four principal
ones. These are:
Local Sustainable Transport Fund (‘LSTF’ - capital and revenue), although the fund’s future is
unclear after 2015;
major schemes (capital), currently those over £5m, although the way this stream is due to be
reformed in 2012;
highways maintenance (capital); and
Integrated Transport Block (ITB) for small transport improvement schemes (capital).
The LSTF is allocated to specific local authority bids so unless there is a further round, the only
source of funding for new transport measures is the ITB. Local Transport Plans (LTPs) usually include
a delivery or implementation plan that sets out measures to be considered for funding from the ITB
and local authority reserves. Currently, these often cover the 2012-2015 period. Because of spending
cuts there is a lot of pressure on budgets, so all the more reason for you to try to get in early with your
proposals into LTPs.
New bodies called local transport boards or consortia are being set up in early 2013 to make
decisions on major transport schemes. More information will be available soon.
Other forms of funding that are only likely to be relevant for major schemes, such as rail reopenings,
are Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and Regional Growth Fund (RGF). It is currently envisaged that
Local Transport Boards or Consortia will be set up in late 2012 to manage the process of prioritising
major schemes. Other smaller funding streams have appeared including Community Transport
Funding and Green Bus Funding.
Cuts to government spending and the recession make for challenging times but new local
government powers and partnerships could help reduce the impact for communities that use them.
Parish councils
Parish and town councils can spend up to £5 per inhabitant on discretionary activities by raising a
precept on council tax bills. They can also raise additional money for non-discretionary spending,
which will not normally relate to transport, and unlike other local authorities their ability to do so is not
capped by central government. You can find out more about these local councils in the Partners and
Information section.
Planning system
Developers can be required to pay to contribute to new and enhanced services and infrastructure to
help reduce the impact of development on the local area. The relevant law has recently been
changed by the Localism Act 2011 and local planning authorities are being given the power to raise a
Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). CIL is largely replacing the previous system of ‘s106’
agreements, which is now mainly for non-financial agreements between developers and authorities.
With a system of levies in place, authorities can set charges that developers must pay in order to
contribute to new or enhanced services or infrastructure. This could cover new local schools and
health centres to reduce the need to travel and also cycle paths, bus stops, public realm
improvements and promotion to encourage sustainable travel choices. It is not intended ‘to remedy
pre-existing deficiencies in infrastructure provision unless those deficiencies will be made more
severe by new development’.
The Government is able to make regulations to require local authorities to pass a proportion of CIL to
the neighbourhoods where development actually takes place. It is worth finding out what the plans are
in your area to do this and setting out priorities for spending CIL in a neighbourhood or parish plan.
The Government provides additional funding or a 'bonus' for new homes by match funding the
additional council tax raised for new homes and empty properties brought back into use, with an
additional amount for affordable homes, for the following six years. Although there is no provision for
this to be paid to neighbourhoods where new homes are built, it is worth pressing local authorities to
give a proportion back to the neighbourhoods affected.
More information:
Department of Communities and Local Government - Community Infrastructure Levy
Department of Communities and Local Government - New Homes Bonus
Revenue streams
There are a number of local funding streams that are usually allocated to local authority generated
proposals. If a proportion of these streams were devolved, they could provide a useful, steady income
for local travel initiatives.
Where enforcement of minor traffic contraventions, such as parking, has been decriminalised, any
money from penalty charges that is left over after enforcement costs is kept locally rather than passed
back to central government. This funding, sometimes known as ‘parking surplus’ can only be used by
lower tier local authorities for specified purposes relating to transport or improving the public realm.
Even if there is already decriminalised enforcement in your area, you could make the case for a
proportion of the proceeds to be given over to local transport initiatives.
On-street and off-street (if it is public rather than private) parking charges are similarly kept by lower
tier local authorities. Increasing parking charges can be a very controversial subject. But if all the
money raised is recycled locally, such as to provide a local delivery services for those who can’t drive
to shops, reducing ugly clutter on a local high street and subsidising local bus services under threat
then a case could be made not just on social and environmental but also economic grounds.
If you are running a community bus service or renting out e-bikes or cycle trailers, you can charge for
this to help cover costs. Having some charge in place can help ensure that people use something
they borrow but setting charges too high can discourage use.
Contributions from others
There are many other groups you can work in partnership with - see the Partnership & information
and planning sections for more ideas. You could either approach them for sponsorship or, where they
have their own travel plan, seek to pool resources. A business trying to improve access by public
transport for its staff could be willing, for example, to work with a Parish Council to provide funding to
keep a local bus service operating.
Grant making funders
There are a number of large benevolent bodies that give funding to worthy projects. Competition can
be fierce, however, and it can take half a year to hear back as to whether an application has been
successful. Some charities only award funding in specific geographical areas, so you may have more
of a chance to gain funding from them.
On-line funding
New funding models allow you to raise money from strangers on-line, building on the success of
ideas such as kickstart.
Typical costs
Signalised crossing circa £60k
Zebra crossing circa £20k - £30k
Cycle way – off road £100 per meter (tarmac)
Dropped crossing £1,200
Pedestrian/cycle subway £100,000 +
Pedestrian/cycle bridge £100,000 +
Cycle stands £100 per stand
New bus shelter £10,000
Electric car charging points £3,750 each
Marked bay £2,200 each
We'll add more when we get more information
Home > Making it happen > Making a plan
Making a plan
Planning needs to involve different people
© Campaign for Better Transport
The process of putting all your ideas into one place can help engage the wider community as well as
make your initiative more effective and permanent.
Overview
Making a plan is a good idea because you can:
set out a vision showing where you want to go, helping you respond to consultations
identify conflicts and connections with other plans, policies and issues
prioritise actions and keep on top of progress
help you embed your goals and proposals in other plans that can refer back to yours
help secure funding through the planning system and Local Transport Plans
You may just have one goal, such as reducing speeds through your village, building a new cycle path
or filling the gap left by bus service cuts.
It is worth looking through other parts of the toolkit, however. There may be connections you could
make, such as embedding your objectives into your local authority’s priorities or into the Workplace
Travel Plan of a local business, for example. This could mean funding for a new path can come from
developers or more local employees could travel by bus, helping ensure the viability of services.
That’s why sections in the improving and influencing sections usually include a ‘partners’ section, to
highlight the links that can if not should be made.
What types of plan can you produce?
One size does not fit all, which is why this toolkit is designed to be able to help:
produce a local area transport plan or neighbourhood travel plan
a travel plan for trip generator, such as a local workplace, school, station or visitor attraction
transport-proofing a parish plan or a neighbourhood plan
a travel campaign for a local action group or coalition of groups.
The size of the plan you want to produce is up to you. A short two page plan with a vision, objectives,
a few figures and targets that ends with a what you can do section can be really accessible. At the
other extreme a 50 page plan that sets out the context in detail and contains a long list of measures
that can be prioritised can really get you somewhere.
Local Area Transport Plans have been pioneered by Central Bedfordshire Council to provide local
detail to the high level strategy and objectives in its Local Transport Plan. Besides setting out
potential sites for housing and employment as well as relevant parts of parish and town plans, these
identify problems for different forms of transport. The Shefford and Silsoe plan is a good example for
rural areas.
Travel plans can vary greatly depending on the type of trip generator or indeed wider area that they
are aimed at. They tend to be shorter term than Local Transport Plans, which can look 20 years into
the future. The different types of are covered in more detail in the separate travel planning section.
Parish plans ‘set out a vision of what is important, how new development can best be fitted in, the
design and quality standards it should meet, how to preserve valued local features and to map out the
facilities which the community needs to safeguard for the future.’ It’s important to ensure transport
issues and needs are incorporated, not just in terms of explicit policies but also thinking through the
transport implications of other policies.
More information: Planning Help
Some of these plans refer to ‘transport’, others to ‘travel’. Transport plans traditionally focused on
hard measures, things like creating new bus services and cycle routes, while travel plans focused
more on softer measures like events and promotion. In addition they are perhaps more inclusive of
promoting walking and changing trip patterns, for example greater use of local shops. With more and
more evidence showing that you can be more effective if you combine hard and soft measures, the
boundary has become blurred and most plans have a bit of both now, whichever word is in their title.
Step by step
The steps set out below apply broadly to the different types of plan. Obviously if you are producing a
Workplace Travel Plan, for example, you will need to focus on engaging key members of staff rather
than key people in the local community. Plan making needs to be ‘iterative’, which means you may
need to change to fine-tune as you go along.
Getting started
The first steps are to: get key people in the community on board; establish a team; produce an initial
programme with timescales and work out how you will communicate with each other as well as
externally.
Communication is really important to ensure the community feels engaged rather than excluded and
so that there is wide ownership of the final plan. Consider the following:
Advertise an initial event locally through posters, invitations to key people (such as local
councillors) and organisations, word of mouth etc.;
Post agenda and minutes on a website or through Google docs (ensuring that while anyone can
read not everyone can edit);
Keep local bodies like parish councils updated for their meetings, as well as local news sheets,
councillors and other active local groups like civic societies, Women’s Institute;
Print out and keep copies of key documents in local library, notice board, pub resource centre
etc for those who do not find it easy to use the internet;
Produce press releases at key stages that include a postal and email address for comments.
Develop a vision and objectives
A vision should be a bit more specific than a ‘the sun shines everyday and everybody is smiling’
approach that no one could disagree with. Be clear what you want to change or preserve from change
and be ambitious yet realistic. Particularly if you are running a campaign, you may want to develop a
brand, a logo and key messages, such as ‘try a different way every week’ to encourage people to
change one trip per week.
Gather information (see the Partners & Information section), including relevant policies in the local
plan and local transport plan for your area. Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Consider the area you want to cover - perhaps a core area plus a wider area of influence - and
possible partners. Also consider the timescales: it can be helpful to cover the short-term (next one to
two years) in detail, include some content for the medium term (up to five years) and at least indicate
where things may or should be going in the long term (up to twenty or thirty years).
You can then develop objectives to help you meet your vision. These should be:
outcome-based – focused on what we are trying to achieve or prevent, rather than on how these
should be done;
hard-edged – to provide a clear test as far as possible, so that options can be assessed
objectively, if possible, by quantifiable indicators;
able to generate a range of options rather than favouring a specific type of solution;
broad enough to be relevant to a wide range of circumstances and to stand the test of time; and
of a manageable number - having to come up with solutions that addressed over 50 objectives
would be unwieldy.
Examples could be: increase the proportion of people travelling actively (i.e. walking and cycling)
every week to improve health; increase the reliability of journey times; reduce traffic noise; increase
access to local food, work and leisure opportunities; and increase people’s perception of the safety of
active travel. You might want to have a higher level of goals, such as ‘reduce carbon emissions’,
‘increase equality of opportunity’ and ‘support economic prosperity’, if you are producing a big plan.
Once you have drafted a vision and objectives, run them past the community. It’s helpful to produce a
summary of feedback and reasons why changes have or haven’t been made that you can send round
to all those who fed in, in order to show how you have listened. You might want to draw up targets at
this stage to generate ambition and enable performance to be monitored.
Staveley (see case study in poster) aimed to get 500 people to reduce their car mileage by 5%. With
only 1,250 residents the figure of 500 people probably exceeded the number of drivers that there
were. Encouragingly 82% of those who responded to surveys said they were thinking about changing
their travel behaviour. Of course people who don’t care are the ones who are most likely not to
answer the surveys.
Develop and sift proposals
You then need to come up with a range of different proposals that you can prioritise. There are lots of
ideas throughout the toolkit to inspire you but the quick packages section should provide a useful
start. Some of these could apply across your area, such as producing a map or promoting local
shops. In relation to others, such as lower speed limits or new paths for walking and cycling, there
may be a need for these in different places.
Sift through your options
This is the ‘Dragon’s Den’ moment. You will need to look at the proposals and score them to see:
how well they fit with objectives you’ve identified and indeed policies in local plans
how much impact on your objectives they are likely to have compared to their cost (see the
changing travel behaviour section);
how deliverable they (e.g. are there big risks or uncertainties)
how they affect different parts of your area and people with different characteristics, such as age
or disabilities, compared to the level of need there is
and how they may work over the short, medium and long term.
You can then list the measures you have chosen into a delivery plan, which could cover a period
between one and three years, that sets out timescales, priorities and costs. Other measures that have
been identified as worthwhile can be held in reserve in case there is more funding in future.
It’s worth highlighting that if you are producing a plan on behalf of a public body, such as a parish
council, you must take account of the public sector equality duty to remove or minimise
disadvantages (even if they have not been caused deliberately) to people with protected
characteristics, such as age, sex or disability. Though it is not a requirement for other bodies, it is a
good idea to pay regard to it, particularly if you are applying for funding from public bodies. For
transport this could mean ensuring that your proposals include specific measures to help those such
as the elderly and disabled who have more problems getting about.
Equality & Human Rights Commission - Introduction to the equality duty
It’s always difficult to know how many different measures to include, though is worth having about a
third more than your budget as not everything will go ahead so fallback options are useful. Having too
many risks a scattergun approach of lots of different little things that take a lot of time and effort but
do not really make a real difference. On the other hand putting all your eggs - and funding - in one
basket, such as a new bridge to provide a safe route over a river, road or railway could mean that lots
of smaller quick wins remain unfunded. A counter argument is that something big could ‘stir the
imagination’ and raise the profile of sustainable modes of travel or indeed a locality.
It’s certainly good to identify quick wins to implement early on that should not be controversial and
that will build momentum. In the end it will be down to your judgement about your local area and the
long term. Perhaps the best advice is to have a big project as a long term aspiration but to carefully
combine other measures that complement each other, using the guidance in the changing behaviour
section. When you consult on the measures it’s worth setting out some sort of rationale to help
explain all this.
Monitor and review
It’s really important to build in reviews of your plan and proposals regularly, in order to keep
momentum up. If you are able to show that it is working, you are more likely to be successful in
applying for funding in future. So it is worth working out the ‘baseline’ is before your actions have any
effect, as this will help you show how much you have achieved. The Partners and Information section
has more details.
Campaign to Protect Rural England, 5-11 Lavington Street, London, SE1 0NZ
Tel: 020 7981 2800 | Fax: 020 7981 2899 | Email: [email protected] | Web: www.cpre.org.uk