Value for money arguments
The Research and Monitoring Unit also undertakes work in a range of areas relating to the economic performance of interventions to support and promote walking and cycling. The Unit conducts economic appraisals of cycling and walking projects. The Cycling Demonstration Towns programme is a good example of how past project evaluation can result in key findings:
- investment in cycling at approximately £10 per head of population was sufficient to achieve a 27% average increase in cycling in every Cycling Demonstration Town
- total benefits of the programme were estimated to be between £47 million - £64 million, of which health benefits accounted for £45 million
- assessed over a ten year period, the benefit to cost ratio was 2.6:1 - 3.5:1.
Economic evaluation is becoming an important feature of Sustrans' monitoring work and is also published for projects such as Links to Schools and in Moving Forward. Typical benefit to cost ratio values for such schemes are around 4:1.
The Unit is part of the expert working group for the World Health Organisation's exercise to develop the Health Economic Assessment Tools (HEAT) for cycling and for walking. These tools seek to assign a value to the increased levels of physical activity associated with walking and cycling.
We are also developing modelling tools to help understand the economic impact of leisure cycling and cycle tourism, and to estimate the potential spending of cycling tourists visiting a region.
Cycling in the city regions
A report by Sustrans, for pteg (Passenger Transport Executive Group), Cycling in the city regions: Delivering a step change demonstrates the best and most effective ways of achieving a major uplift in cycling in the city regions. The technical annex is also available: Cycling in the city regions: Technical Annex - Modelling the Impact of Step Changes in the Delivery of Measures to Support Cycling in PTE Areas.
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