A travel plan is essentially your individual action plan which illustrates how you propose to reduce car travel in favour of more environmentally friendly transport modes. A travel plan is normally associated with places of employment and schools, but is becoming increasingly linked to new large scale residential developments.

Only new developments are required to prepare a travel plan, and they usually form a planning condition. Existing businesses are under no obligation to prepare one, but it is considered good practice and public sector bodies set a good example by doing so.

A travel plan can bring many benefits to your business, including:

• reduced car parking demand
• enhanced travel options for staff and customers
• increased awareness to environmental issues amongst staff
• better health for staff, which in turn may reduce absentee occurrences
• helps toward achieving environmental accreditation to ISO 14000
• it is good for your company profile

New developments are restricted in the number of car parking spaces they can provide in accordance with local authority standards. This may lead to more demand for car parking than can be accommodated, which in turn can induce driver frustration and illegal parking. Travel plans play an important role in reducing car travel and subsequent demand for parking which can benefit a business.

How we can help

Millard Consulting have extensive experience of preparing and monitoring travel plans for a wide variety of businesses and residential developments. We can work closely with you to identify the current and proposed travel characteristics of your business, and identify trends and opportunities for improvements.

We can help you to set travel targets and advise on ways that you can co-ordinate the travel plan yourself. We can also liaise with local authorities in order to encourage an integrated approach to your travel plan and those of other businesses around you. We can prepare a travel plan for you which can satisfy planning conditions and which will bring benefits to your company.

Things to consider

A travel plan should not be a generic document copied from elsewhere. It should be tailored to the individual needs of your company and should reflect its location. It is your action plan, and therefore preparation requires some discussion with you in order to understand your requirements and prepare a plan that is appropriate. A travel plan is not simply a report, but is an on going action plan which will require your continued support and some resources and finance if it is to be successful.

You will need to appoint someone to the role of travel plan co-ordinator, which is the most important role to the plan. This need not be a full time position, depending on the size of your business.  You should set aside an annual budget for operation of the travel plan, in accordance with the size of your business.

You should arrange for annual monitoring of the travel plan over a minimum of five years, and Millard Consulting can assist you with this via traffic surveys and staff questionnaires. It is beneficial, but not essential, if staff have access to a pc in order to complete questionnaires online.

If you are required to operate a travel plan as a planning condition for your development then you should ensure that it is properly administered and monitored in order to maintain the planning status of your building and in order to avoid potential penalties being imposed by your local authority.