Delivering Personal Travel Planning for Hackney, London

Hackney Council required Personal Travel Planning to be delivered to over 5,000 households across four different focus areas:

• Walking uptake - A targeted walking campaign aimed at an area identified with a high proportion of local trips made by car with potential for change.
• Cycling uptake - An intervention which promoted recent infrastructure improvements to Cycle Superhighways and Quietways, leading to opportunities to discuss travel and mode choice.
• Smarter Travel Estates – Personalised Travel Planning to residents living in estates where transport poverty and health where both key factors in travel choice.
• Zero Emissions Network (ZEN): An air quality initiative between Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets with the aim of helping businesses save money, reduce emissions and improve local air quality by making changes to transport and building use.

The Steer project team recruited and trained a team of four Travel Advisors, a Team Leader and a Project Coordinator to engage with residents using Motivational Interviewing techniques in the four areas.

Throughout each area, engagement was tailored to meet specific aims of the intervention. Our award-winning design team worked closely with Hackney’s design team to create a series of travel options guides to support engagement in each area.

For the first time in the ZEN programme, outreach was extended to residents living within the area who could benefit from Personal Travel Planning. This was supported by a wide variety of offers such as discounted cycle hire and car club memberships to support change. Our project team worked with the three boroughs to deliver this element of the programme.

Successes and outcomes

Over the course of the project, Steer contacted and held behaviour change conversations with 2,400 households. Of those, 1,275 participated in the project by requesting information or support.

Travel resources were well received by both our client and residents with over 1,000 travel options guides being distributed over the course of the project.

Through conversations advisors piqued the interest of current and potential cyclists, with over 250 individuals referred to take up cycle training.