Greener Living boost to TravelSmart
Sustrans' TravelSmart has been given the opportunity to extend and develop its work, thanks to support from Defra's Greener Living Fund.
TravelSmart consistently achieves reductions in car trips of ten per cent or more wherever it operates by providing information and advice about environmentally-friendly and healthier forms of travel directly to residents. The Greener Living Fund will allow TravelSmart to bring the benefits of reduced car use to two more towns in England, whilst also encouraging a wider audience to consider making their local journeys on foot, by bike or on public transport.
The two new TravelSmart projects in Ipswich and Broxbourne will begin next year, offering tailor-made information packs and advice to 25,000 households.
New nationwide online mapping on the Sustrans website will also be further developed, showing local parks, schools, shops and community centres, and how to get to them on foot, by bike or on public transport. This innovative mapping will allow people to plot, save and share maps of their favourite journeys around their neighbourhood.
TravelSmart has offered personalised advice, information and support on sustainable travel options to more than 200,000 households in more than 20 areas across the UK since 2001. The projects in Ipswich and Broxbourne are expected to achieve the same reductions in car trips seen in the other projects, along with increased levels of physical activity and access to local amenities. Local TravelSmart maps are the most popular items that the project offers, and this new funding will allow these sustainable travel maps to be made available to a much wider audience.
Rob Wall, TravelSmart Project Manager, says: "The Greener Living Fund is providing a great boost, allowing us to extend the benefits of TravelSmart to households in Ipswich and Hertfordshire and offer people across the country online access to the sort of local sustainable travel maps available to TravelSmart participants. This has real potential to help people across the whole of England change their travel behaviour."
The project will be delivered by Sustrans and partners Socialdata, with support from the Greener Living Fund, Hertfordshire County Council and Suffolk County Council.