Developing a travel plan
Many travel plans that are submitted in support of planning applications are often written as though consultants are providing advice to developers about what a travel plan ‘should’ contain and achieve.
A travel plan’s purpose is to provide confidence to the highway authority that its content ‘will’ be delivered, especially where it forms a fundamental part of vision led planning. As such, use of “will” commitments are preferred, rather than “should”, “could”, “will consider”, etc.
Scoping and agreeing the outline contents of a travel plan
Given the linkages with the Transport Assessment, the outline contents of a travel plan supporting a planning application should be agreed with the local highway authority as an intrinsic part of the scoping process.
The areas to be agreed as part of the scoping process should include:
- Relationship to the vision-led approach of the transport assessment.
- Type of travel plan to be submitted.
- Scope of site audit.
- Key measures relevant to the site and development.
- Approaches to monitoring and fallback (remedial) measures.
Adherence to the structure suggested in this guidance should facilitate the assessment and agreement of the plan and should expedite this element of the planning application.
Types of travel plan
There are three main types of travel plan for a development site:
- Full Travel Plans
- Interim (Outline) Travel Plans
- Framework Travel Plans
A Full Travel Plan - should normally be submitted to support a full planning application. This will include clear targets, measures to achieve those targets, and a monitoring and review framework. Where the end user is known (e.g. employment unit occupier, or housing developer), then a Full Travel Plan should always be submitted.
An Outline Travel Plan - may be more appropriate for certain applications, e.g. employment uses where there is a single occupier but that occupier remains unknown; e.g. housing development but the developer is unknown. They should still include clear targets, but some aspects may remain provisional (i.e. details of measures). An important component of the Outline Travel Plan would be a timeframe in which to develop and agree with the local highway authority a Full Travel Plan.
A Framework Travel Plan - can be submitted in the case of developments with multiple employment occupants and where the occupier(s) remains unknown, or if a large residential site is being phased and involves several developers. It should focus on targets and measures across the whole site and should be administered centrally. Framework Travel Plans should be followed by Full (or Unit) Travel Plans for individual components, as the site develops, which are consistent with the Framework. As large sites can take some time to occupy, the Framework Travel Plan should include as a key component a clear timetable setting out when measures would be enacted.
For very small sites that don’t generate significant amounts of movement (e.g. in the context of travel plans this could be fewer than 50 dwellings or 20 total staff) then a simplified travel plan (or a Travel Plan Statement) may be appropriate focusing attention on the travel plan co-ordinator role, proposed measures and light-touch monitoring. For the avoidance of doubt, simplified travel plans would not be appropriate as a substitute for Unit Travel Plans (operating under a Framework Travel Plan) where consistency with the agreed Framework Travel Plan will be required.
No matter which travel plan type is being submitted, the “audience” (i.e. staff, particular staff groups, residents, visitors) should be clearly identified within the document; and measures and targets referenced to these audiences.
Overview of the site being developed
The travel plan should provide an overview of the site being developed (including location, size and type), introduce the organisation(s), and provide an overview of how they will operate (e.g. staff numbers, shift patterns, operating hours), if known.
The site location, including address, should be provided and mapped.
For larger sites, phasing would need to be identified such that an appropriate monitoring life-time can be agreed.
For employment proposals, the travel plan should estimate the number of employees who would be working on site. This information should be available since it relates directly to all-modes trip generation.
Where a travel plan is being submitted to satisfy a planning condition, then the relevant planning condition should be included in the introductory text, alongside the planning application reference number.
