Monitoring Advice Note

What is a travel plan?

A travel plan is a long-term management strategy for an occupier or site that seeks to deliver sustainable transport objectives through action, and is articulated in a document that is regularly reviewed. A travel plan involves the development of agreed and explicit outcomes linked to an appropriate package of measures aimed at encouraging more sustainable travel for both people and goods.

Travel plans secured through the planning process must include an action plan, targets and a programme for review and monitoring. Occupiers who subsequently fail to implement, monitor or review their travel plan will be in breach of the terms of their Planning Permission. If it is considered there has been a breach of planning control this could result in enforcement or legal action being taken by the Local Planning Authority.

Monitoring your travel plan

Monitoring is an integral part of every travel plan; it is essential to track progress of the plan and refine its future delivery where the travel plan is not on track to achieve its agreed targets.

How often should monitoring be done?

The original travel plan that was approved by the Council for your site should contain the requirements of your monitoring regime. As a general rule, it is expected that monitoring will be undertaken within 6 months of occupation and at Year 1 (to achieve a baseline set of results) of the Travel Plan, and subsequently in Years 3 and 5 as a minimum. For large-scale developments some West London boroughs require a continuation of monitoring in Years 8 and 10 as part of a ten year schedule (see individual Travel Plan document or Planning Condition to determine if this applies to your site).

Where targets are NOT achieved at the end of the defined monitoring period (e.g. Year 5 or Year 10), additional monitoring surveys may be required until proof of achievement is provided.

How should monitoring be carried out?

A standard methodology for monitoring Travel Plans has been adopted across all London Boroughs. To ensure consistency of monitoring, it is essential that all sites follow the standard methodology.

All sites must either carry out a survey which complies with current West London requirements. For larger sites with high level of employee, visitor, residents or customer movements, a TRAVL survey is required. If you are unsure which is required, you should check your original travel plan or contact WestTrans Travel Plans who can advise on survey requirements.

West London Survey Requirements

All boroughs in West London require surveys to include the following question, using the categories listed below:

What is your main mode of travel? ('Main mode' is the one that you are on for the longest distance of your journey):

• Drive a car alone
• Car share driver
• Car share passenger
• Motorcycle
• Bus
• Tram
• Underground
• Rail
• Bike/Rail
• Bicycle
• Foot
• Other

Other questions that will usefully inform the travel plan can be asked - although these are not compulsory for the survey. Useful information to collect can include home postcode, reasons for choosing mode of travel, or additional measures that would encourage people to travel sustainably.

Surveys can be administered using paper-based surveys, web-based surveys or a mix of both. WestTrans can supply organisations with a web-based survey template if required - please contact WestTrans to arrange for a live link to an online survey to be generated.

Sites should aim for a minimum 30% response rate, although in some cases a higher response rate may be required to ensure data is robust. Incentives and reminders can be used to ensure that and acceptable response is achieved. A survey period of two weeks is typically used to give as many people as possible the chance to participate.  
 

TRAVL surveys

TRAVL surveys collect information about the absolute number of vehicles generated by a site (including levels of on-street and off-street parking) as well as the mode split of staff/ visitors leaving / entering a site on the survey day (7am-7pm).

The TRAVL survey must be compliant with the established TRAVL methodology and should be undertaken by an approved Independent Field Company (IFC). The full list of approved suppliers can be found on the TRAVL website: http://www.travl.org.uk/


For more information, please refer to the New Way to Plan Technical Note: iTRACE and TRAVL compliancy which can be found at:

newwaytoplan.tfl.gov.uk

Reporting

The results of monitoring should be submitted to your Local Authority in a monitoring report. The monitoring report should include:

1. Actions undertaken to date. A summary of all the actions undertaken to meet the objectives of the Travel Plan should be provided 
2. Results of the surveys. The results of the surveys should be presented as absolute numbers rather than percentages. additional information about the site should also be provided. As a minimum, this should be the number of people based on site and the number of parking
3. An action plan. This should set out how the Travel Plan will be delivered in order to meet its objectives and targets.

A template for this is available to download below.


For more information, please contact:

WestTrans Travel Plans
travelplans.westtrans.org 

e: westtranstravelplans@ealing.gov.uk

t: 0208 825 9635 / 8075