Introduction
Local Transport Projects Ltd (LTP) worked with Engie and North East Lincolnshire Council (NELC) over summer 2019 to provide Personalised Travel Planning to 600 households across North East Lincolnshire. The project was part of the wider NELC “Pedal and Stride to Economic Growth” project which aims to encourage cycling, walking and public transport use in North East Lincolnshire.
Personalised Travel Planning
Personalised Travel Planning is the provision of targeted information, incentives and motivation directly to individuals to help them make sustainable travel choices. It has been developed and implemented on a large scale since the 1990’s, with Socialdata the main pioneer. It was first implemented in Germany and Australia and is now practiced all over the world. Although Personalised Travel Planning is typically delivered across residential areas, in recent years it has been applied to other settings, such as workplaces, schools, colleges etc.
Here are a few examples of successful Personalised Travel Planning projects:
- Brighton and Hove Council (UK) has talked to around 100,000 people since 2006;
- London Borough of Haringey (UK) has held Personalised Travel Planning talks with over 3,500 citizens;
- Royal Borough of Greenwich (UK) developed a new Local Travel Map to encourage people to travel more sustainably;
- Personalised Travel Planning has been delivered to 1,000 employers of the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia); and
- Almost 3,200 people have been involved with Personalised Travel Planning conversations in Antwerp (Belgium), with tailored mobility guides produced for six workplaces.
(Source: EPOMM, 2015)
Our Project
A group of us from LTP were appointed as ‘Travel Advisors’ and we became ambassadors for LTP, Engie and NELC. We distributed pre-information postcards and information to each household before conducting door-to-door interviews. The interviews set out to gain an understanding of where households regularly travel to/from and the reasons behind their main mode of travel. Once this information was collected, it was processed into an online system called myPTP. This system produced a tailored Travel Plan for each participating household with the aim of encouraging people to travel more sustainably and reduce single occupancy car trips.
The Travel Plan was then paired with various materials, including cycle and walking maps of the local area and bus timetables before being distributed back to the participating household, along with a verbal explanation of the pack. The next step in the project was to revisit the participating households after a month to determine whether they had made any changes to their travel. The project yielded good results, with 10% of participants making changes to travel more sustainably. This reflects the results of other Personalised Travel Planning projects:
- A project in Perth (Australia) saw a 14% reduction in the use of car trips;
- In 2008, Personalised Travel Planning Projects in the UK achieved a 11% reduction in car trips; and
- In Antwerp (Belgium), solo car use dropped from 28% to 15% as a result of a Personalised Travel Planning project.
(Source: EPOMM, 2015)
Project Benefits
The long-term benefits of this project are plentiful; when residents chose to swap even just some of their car journeys for cycling journeys or using the bus, they are becoming more sustainable and reducing their carbon footprint. People will become healthier and fitter, and many will see extra money in their pockets as a result from not using as much fuel. With more people utilising the bus, journey times on the road will be decreased and people are likely to become less stressed when travelling, seeing long-term benefits to their health and also to the local environment.
