Travelsmart Project
The Travelsmart project was delivered by Sustrans and
Socialdata with funding from Defra's Greener Living Fund and
support from Hertfordshire County Council, Broxbourne Borough
Council and other local partners. It was intended that
the programme would reverse the trend towards increased car use and
tackle its impacts on climate change, public health and quality of
life.
TravelSmart is based on a process known as Individualised Travel
Marketing (ITM) and works with households offering tailor-made
information and support, enabling people to walk, cycle and
use public transport more often. Between May and August 2010, the
TravelSmart project team contacted around 8,000 households in
the Borough of Broxbourne. Local residents across the
Borough, from Hoddesdon Town to Waltham Cross, were sent this
information by post with the intention that this would
deliver measurable and sustained reductions in car use.
The project achieved substantial increases in walking and use of
public transport, with relative reductions in car-as-driver trips
of 10%, car-as-passenger trips of 21%, and in car distance
travelled for day-to-day trips of 14% (a net saving of 9.8 million
car km per year across the target population). This level
of behaviour change is in line with other UK TravelSmart projects.
The shift from car travel to sustainable modes also resulted in a
12% relative increase in average daily exposure to physically
active forms of travel.
