Halcrow worked with HITRANS, the Highlands and Islands Regional Transport Partnership, to develop an Active Travel Regional Infrastructure Audit Methodology.
To date, Halcrow has conducted active travel audits based on this methodology in 14 settlements across the HITRANS area.
Project challenges and goals
The overall aim of the project was to prioritise active travel interventions in order to increase the potential for active travel, and to see an increase in the numbers of people choosing to walk and cycle within regional centres.
Halcrow was set with the task to identify potential measures to be implemented in corridors with the greatest potential for mode shift.
Halcrow’s role
- A study of demographics, travel-to-work patterns, public transport information and traffic accident data
- Analysis of main-trip generators or attractors
- Consultation with the local authority and other interested parties
- On-site walking audits using the Transport Research Laboratory Pedestrian Environment Review System (PERS)
- Cycle audits in line with Institution of Highways and Transportation guidelines
- Application of a prioritisation filter
Halcrow delivered
- Action plans identifying areas and schemes where there is the greatest potential to achieve modal shift or where there is the greatest need for infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists.
- Active travel master plan providing a core network for pedestrians and cyclists with direct, safe, attractive and coherent links between destinations.
Outcomes and achievements
The application of the methodology produces a series of substantiated recommendations for investment and design. The methodology has proven to be a straightforward, cost effective, transparent and a fair process for potentially allocating funding to measures which have been identified as having the most need in the community.
The audit reports have already contributed to the leverage of external funding for active travel related measures for the Orkney Islands Council and The Moray Council in Kirkwall and Elgin respectively.