What is active travel?

Active travel is walking and cycling, or using any form of physically active transport – such as rollerblading, riding a horse, or even pushing a wheelchair – for the purpose of making ‘everyday’ journeys. It is a key component of the sustainable travel hierarchy, and it helps people to get more physical activity, improve their health, wellbeing and mental state, save money, reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion, and support local business and community.

what is active travel  the government has allocated funding to encourage walking and cycling through its Capability Fund, which supports development of Local Transport Plan (LTN) 1/20 compliant infrastructure and behaviour change activities. This is aimed at supporting the government’s ambition to halve road deaths by 2025, and to help achieve the Healthy Weight, Happy Lives (HWL) public health target of increasing physical activity to 60 minutes per day for those aged 5 and over.

Exploring the Urban Jungle: The Importance of Well-Designed Walkways in Cities

Local authorities have a key role to play in encouraging more walking and cycling, through their influence on planning, and the opportunity they have to shape a network of local travel routes that connects residents to services and employment centres. They also have the ability to support employees of local businesses, industrial estates and business improvement districts to promote and support active travel with their staff.

This research, led by University of Oxford, used focus groups and go-along journeys to explore perceptions and barriers to active travel for commuters and older adults in market towns. These were complemented by interviews, with video images and voice recordings, to allow rich data grounded in the specific characteristics of each town.