An expert perspective on the future of travel plans: lessons from the UK

The travel plan can be defined as being “a long-term management strategy for an organisation and its various sites or business park that seeks to deliver transport objectives through positive action and is articulated by a document that is regularly reviewed”. Importantly, unlike more ‘traditional’ measures they can be effective at reducing car use while being politically acceptable and relatively cheap and quick to introduce. Given that transport problems are often seen as being extremely difficult to solve by politicians and their officials, it is therefore strange that they have seemingly ignored the apparent significant potential of the travel plan. This paper reports the interview findings from ten travel plan experts in the UK who were asked for their views on the state of play of travel plans in the UK currently and their predictions for the future. From these a series of recommendations are presented as to how travel plan policy may be conducted in the future.