Sustainable travel and smarter choices
We want to help you think about transport and help you move towards more sustainable travel options (smarter choices), such as walking, cycling, public transport and car sharing.
Persuading people to break the habit of simply getting in the car for everyday journeys is not easy.
Whilst we recognise that the use of a car is sometimes unavoidable it is important to demonstrate that realistic sustainable travel options do exist for all sorts of journeys.
This is why we subsidise buses to run where and when people need them, it's why we have Community Transport (opens in a new window) schemes for people who can't easily use public transport, it's why we support walking and cycling throughout our county and it's why we operate a free car share scheme for anyone in the county to use.
We ask people who live and work in the county, or who just visit, to think twice about their travel choices and to consider more sustainable travel options such as those listed above.
These 'smarter choices' are smarter for several reasons as they can:
- help you stay fit and healthy
- save you money
- improve the environment by reducing harmful carbon emissions
- lessen congestion on our roads.
Recent research, undertaken for Department of Transport (DfT), has found that an intensive smarter choices programme, over a 10 year period, can cut car traffic significantly. For example:
- Urban peak-hour traffic could be cut by 21 per cent and off-peak by 13 per cent.
- Non-urban peak-hour traffic could be cut by 14 per cent and off-peak by 7 per cent.
- Nationally traffic volumes could be cut by 11 per cent.
To provide a balanced local smarter choices programme, we offer a selection of services:
A dedicated team of professionals working with businesses, and other organisations, to develop workplace travel plans and to promote flexible working practises.
This work complements the Safer Routes to School, the 20mph programmes, as well as our wider road safety work.
A Sustainable Modes of Travel Strategy which provides information for parents the work we do with schools and further education establishments regarding the promotion of sustainable transport.
Access to a countywide car share matching service. Find out more and sign up at CarShareDerbyshire (opens in a new window).
Contact
Sustainable Travel Team
Tel: 01629 538192
email: richard.lovell@derbyshire.gov.uk
Related documents
The following document is in Portable Document Format (PDF). You can download software to view PDF documents for free from the Adobe website (opens in a new window)
