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Active Travel

If more short journeys are made on foot or by bike, we can make our cities healthier, greener and more liveable places.

Resources for this topic

View documents, reports and other material.

Report

Future Streets: Challenges and opportunities

Streets are often the most contested spaces in any town or city. There are a large number and wide variety of calls on street space (at least 160 legitimate calls), and they simply can’t all be met. This report seeks to help local highway and strategic transport authorities rise to the challenge of better street and kerbside management.
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Report

The Good Life: The role of transport in shaping a new and sustainable era for suburbs

We are a nation of suburbanites. However, the ubiquity of suburban living is often not reflected in transport policy. And there can be no decarbonisation of transport without specific measures to decarbonise transport in the suburbs. This report presents four foundations of suburbs for a new era – one which offers all suburbanites the promise of the ‘Good Life’ whilst addressing the climate crisis.
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Report

What next for urban transport?

This report - published to coincide with the 2019 Autumn Party Conferences - identifies four urban transport challenges and four solutions needed to overcome them.

It also details what transport authorities need from Government to bring about these changes. 

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Report

Number crunch 2019: Urban transport trends in changing times

This is the second in our Number crunch report series and provides an updated overview of the key trends over the last ten years, as well as taking a look at what the new and most recent data is telling us.

We are living in rapidly changing times. Big shifts are taking place in urban transport trends.

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Report

Policy futures for urban transport

The latest edition of Policy futures for urban transport emphasises how a new deal on funding and powers is essential to keep the UK's cities moving forward.

The report sets out the 10 key policy changes that are needed to make cities healthier, fairer and more prosperous.

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Report

Active Travel: Solutions for changing cities

This report takes a detailed look at how active travel schemes can transform cities for the better – from Bristol to Inverness and from post-industrial Northern cities to the heart of the City of London.

Over the last decade promoting active travel has moved from the fringes of urban transport policy to a much more central role in the planning of cities and their transport networks. This is because the promotion of active travel, and the creation of places and streetscapes where people want to walk and cycle, is such a good fit with where cities that are going places want to be.

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Report

Policy Futures

Policy futures for urban transport sets out how, with more focused governance in place, the city regions are delivering major investment programmes including on public transport, highways and active travel, and smart ticketing. The report says that - with the right national policy framework - further and faster progress can be made, including:

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Report

The Case for Active Travel

This report sets out the fivefold economic benefits of greater investment in active travel: saving costs to the health sector; the economic value of active travel trips; the economic benefits of an improved urban realm; promoting inclusive growth; and direct employment and spend.

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Report

Horizon scan of implications of technological and social change

This report aims to provide decision makers with a guide to the implications for urban transport of transformative social and technological change and how they can best respond. 

The report (which was produced in collaboration with Arup Foresight) identifies four key overarching trends: 

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Report

A Healthy Relationship: Public health and transport collaboration in local government

This report sets out the findings of a survey of all Directors of Public Health (DsPH) in England. The survey investigated the extent of collaboration between public health and transport teams within local government since public health teams moved into top-tier local authorities in April 2013.

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Report

Changing Highways Policy

This report to pteg by Atkins focuses on the most important recent and forthcoming changes to highways policy and the implications of these for Metropolitan areas, including in respect of air quality, carbon emissions, technology, the Strategic Road Network, road maintenance, road safety, planning, freight, management of road space and parking policy.

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Report

LSTF Monitoring and Evaluation Guidance - Final Report

Building on the work of the Department for Transport, pteg commissioned AECOM to prepare additional guidance for PTEs and other Local Transport Authorities to assist in the monitoring and evaluation of Local Sustainable Transport Fund projects. The guidance provides a practical approach to developing cost effective and affordable monitoring and evaluation programmes.

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Report

Cycling in the city regions: Technical report

This document reports the results of a series of modelling exercises intended to estimate the potential impact and value for money of a step change in the delivery of interventions to support and promote cycling in the six PTE areas. The purpose of this exercise is to support decision-makers in developing effective strategies aimed at increasing cycling levels in the metropolitan areas.

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Report

Cycling in the city regions: Delivering a step change

This report explores the potential impact of a step change in the delivery of interventions to support and promote cycling in the English city regions outside of London. It finds that the greatest potential for increasing cycling in the UK can be found in the city regions.

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Press release

100 million car and taxi trips in city regions could be replaced by e-bikes if Government delivers target for shift to cycling, new report shows

Over 100 million car and taxi trips made in city regions each year could instead be on e-bikes if the Government is able to deliver its target for mode shift to cycling, according to a new report by consultants Steer for the Urban Transport Group (UTG).
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Press release

The biggest job in UK urban transport: TfL Commissioner to speak about leading through a global crisis and towards a green and just recovery

Transport for London Commissioner Andy Byford will be in conversation with Jo Field, Chief Executive of JFG Communications and President of Women in Transport for the seventh in the Urban Transport Next series of events, hosted by Urban Transport Group.
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Press release

Changing travel habits in UK’s cities revealed in new data report

Fewer commutes per person, reduced car use in major urban centres and rapidly falling bus patronage – these are just some of the transport trends taking place in the UK’s biggest cities and city regions, as identified in the Urban Transport Group’s latest data report.
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Press release

National Infrastructure Commission is right to make devolved transport funding for cities a key test for Government’s future infrastructure plan

The National Infrastructure Commission’s call for Government to make devolved funding for urban transport to cities a key test of the Government’s forthcoming National Infrastructure Strategy is hugely welcome, says the Urban Transport Group.
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Press release

Climate advisors’ ‘clear route map’ for tackling transport emissions welcomed by city region transport authorities

The Urban Transport Group - the UK's network of city region transport authorities - has today welcomed the Committee on Climate Change’s new advice for Government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, and specifically its recommendations for the transport sector.
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Press release

Urban Transport Group launches ‘Healthy Streets for All’ programme with public health expert Lucy Saunders

Healthy Streets for All, a new programme to raise awareness and support UK cities in shaping urban environments around people and their health, has been launched today by the Urban Transport Group in collaboration with renowned public health expert Lucy Saunders.
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Press release

Cycling and walking schemes are transforming UK cities for the better, says new report

On the eve of the UK’s biggest cycling conference the UK’s network of leading city region transport authorities have released a new report which shows how active travel schemes can change cities for the better wherever they are implemented – from Bristol to Inverness and from post-industrial Northern cities to the heart of the City of London.
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Press release

New report identifies fivefold economic benefits of investing in active travel

In the run up to the publication of the Government's Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, a new report from the Urban Transport Group (which represents the UK's largest urban transport authorities) sets out the fivefold economic benefits of investing in active travel.
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Press release

UK's largest urban transport authorities set out vision for future of transport in the city regions

Following on from the EU referendum, the formation of a new Government and with the start of the party conference season, the Urban Transport Group has set out a vision for how UK transport policy could unfold in a way that will enable the nation’s largest urban areas to deliver inclusive growth in a smart and sustainable way.

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