Interventions to address common barriers to active travel

Based on analysis of local data and problems and opportunities identified during the ATS development process, a package of interventions should be identified, to achieve the ATS objectives. They should address the identified problems and thereby help people to overcome barriers they face in order in order to walk, wheel and cycle.

Using a social marketing approach, behaviour can be changed using interventions that address people’s areas of influence, namely support, design, inform & educate and control. This is known as the 'Intervention Mix' into which different types of measures can be categorised:

  • Support - Giving people the means and solutions to travel actively
  • Design - Changing the environment, physical context and our services to support travelling actively. This is necessary but not sufficient to change travel behaviour.
  • Inform and educate - Providing targeted information to advise, build awareness, persuade and inspire.
  • Control - Steps to legislate, require, enforce and set standards

It is recommended that a mixture of intervention types are implemented together in the same area (e.g. neighbourhood, town). This has been shown to be an effective strategy for increasing sustainable transport use and reducing car use.

Some barriers to active travel will be specific to a local area. However, there are common barriers to active travel that many people experience and well understood interventions that are recommended to address them. This section sets these barriers out alongside recommended interventions, colour coded against the headings of the Intervention Mix.

Barriers

Social and physical barriers to walking

Intervention: Led walking groups

Cost of owning and maintaining a cycle

Intervention: measures to increase access to cycles, which could include:

  • develop public cycle hire schemes on a scale relevant to the area
  • free cycles for school children, a pilot project which will be rolled out as a national scheme
  • cycle loan / library schemes, including adapted cycles and cargo bikes
  • promotion of Cycle to Work scheme
  • cycle recycling and re-use

Cycle storage space / theft

Intervention: Increasing secure cycle parking and storage at key destinations and in residential areas

Distance to far to cycle, hilliness and/or fitness

Intervention: measures to increase access to electric cycles will extend range and overcome these barriers for some people.

Inability to cycle safely

Intervention: cycle training

Bikeability Scotland training for all children

Intervention: Targeted offer of Essential Cycle Skills training for adults and families

Quality / inaccessibility of the pedestrian environment; fear of slips, trips and falls

Intervention: area-based accessibility audits with targeted improvements

  • The quality of the built environment disproportionately prevents people who identify with certain protected characteristics (including disabled people, children and elderly) from walking or wheeling. It can also prevent people from being able to access public transport.
  • Often many small changes need to be made in an area to create good conditions for walking and wheeling. Audits are a good way to identify and prioritise necessary improvements.
  • Common issues and potential solutions have been reviewed by Living Streets through a nationwide study. Both detailed design and wider issues such as dominance of parking in the streetscape and passive surveillance are important issues to address to enable walking and wheeling.

Traffic-related safety, personal security

Intervention: on-road cycle networks, primarily composed of protected cycle lanes on main roads, in all large towns and cities

  • Cycle lanes physically separated from traffic improve safety and being in the street environment provides greater passive surveillance, compared to paths remote from the road, addressing personal security concerns
  • These networks are likely to include Active Freeways, 'high-quality direct active travel routes, segregated from traffic, along main roads in large urban areas (both radial and other high-demand corridors) that connect outlying neighbourhoods to city/town centres and other important destinations'
  • Where cycleways are constructed, it is recommended to incorporate complementary improvements for walking and wheeling on the same streets

Traffic-related safety

Intervention: plan strategic expansions to green path networks that are suitable for walking, wheeling and cycling, connecting communities in urban and rural areas.

  • Greened path networks can help achieve different outcomes to on-road cycle networks, so both types of interventions are needed
  • Creating greened path networks provide active travel options which address traffic-related safety
  • Where they are remote from the road network they can provide beneficial access to greenspace, help improve mental health and create leisure and tourism opportunities.
  • However, they often lack passive surveillance and are perceived as poor for personal security, particularly in hours of darkness, by many people
  • Path networks can provide vital connections between communities. Some paths may be designated as part of the National Cycle Network.

Neighbourhood traffic-related safety

Intervention: measures to reduce traffic volumes

  • Conversion of residential areas to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods to reduce through traffic volumes, making streets safer and more appealing to walk, wheel and cycle, using a co-ordinated package of modal filters.
  • The space freed up can create opportunities for place-making, such as adding greenery, seating, art and play spaces. These changes to streets should be co-designed with communities following the Place Principle.
  • Low Traffic Neighbourhoods will also make it safer for children to walk, wheel and cycle to school.

Lack of awareness of support and infrastructure available to enable travelling actively

Intervention: Develop a behaviour change strategy tailored to individuals and your local area

  • While some general information for the local population is needed, approaches need to be tailored and targeted to specific segments of the population in order to be most effective at changing behaviour. Blanket marketing campaigns on the benefits of active travel are less likely to lead to significant changes in behaviour.
  • Intervention: Personal Travel Planning is a way to provide targeted information, incentives and motivation directly to individuals to help them make more sustainable travel choices.

Parked motor vehicles preventing people using pavements

Intervention: enforcement of forthcoming pavement parking regulations

Traffic-related safety

Interventions: speed limit reductions including

  • Implementation of 20 mph speed limits in villages, towns and cities
  • Reducing the speed limit of selected minor rural roads to enable more walking, wheeling and cycling, as part of a network approach

Interventions: limiting street access to walking, wheeling and cycling

  • Implementation of School Streets, time-limited prohibitions to motor traffic on streets adjacent to schools
  • Pedestrianisation of streets, retaining access by cycling