Promoting active travel
Increasing levels of physical activity is a key strategy for tackling obesity and other life-limiting health conditions. By promoting walking and cycling for day-to-day journeys, TravelSmart enables people to adopt more physically active - and healthy - lifestyles. Building on the evidence of modal shift generated by Individualised Travel Marketing (ITM), Sustrans is now working with Socialdata and other partners to demonstrate its wider public health benefits.
TravelSmart's project in Gloucester, funded through Active England (jointly operated by Sport England and the Big Lottery Fund), was the first in the UK specifically to incorporate the promotion of physical activity alongside sustainable travel. Targeting around 4,000 households in an inner-city neighbourhood, TravelSmart was successful in generating levels of modal shift comparable to those achieved by an earlier TravelSmart programme in the relatively affluent suburb of Quedgeley.
The detailed evaluation showed that the shift from car travel to walking, cycling and public transport resulted in a 15% increase in average daily exposure to physically active forms of travel. By marketing local sports and leisure facilities alongside sustainable travel options, the TravelSmart programme also generated increases in participation in other forms of physical activity, including sport.
Even without an explicit focus on physical activity, TravelSmart brings public health benefits from increased levels of walking and cycling as part of people's daily routines. The evaluation of the first stage of the Peterborough programme demonstrated that the reported increases in sustainable travel resulted in an 18% increase in daily time spent using physically active forms of travel.