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Station travel plans

A station travel plan is a document that sets out ways to:

  • reduce the barriers to access for people wanting to travel to the station (particularly for the mobility impaired or those who can't currently get to the station);
  • increase the number of people who travel to the station in an environmentally friendly manner (this is called "modal shift").

Each travel plan contains both short and long term measures to improve pedestrian access and encourage modal shift; prioritised according to their expected levels of impact.

Why undertake a station travel plan study?

The 2007 Government White Paper, Delivering a Sustainable Railway highlighted the Station Travel Plans initiative, as first suggested by Campaign for Better Transport (formerly Transport 2000). In response to the Rail White Paper and as part of the Warwickshire Quality Rail Partnership, Warwickshire County Council undertook a Station Travel Plan study in order to improve station access, promote sustainable travel and further develop partnership working within the rail industry.

What did the station travel plan study involve?

Warwickshire County Council commissioned Halcrow Group Ltd as the study consultants in January 2008. Halcrow were able to greatly expand the research elements of the study thanks to a generous financial contribution from Passenger Focus, the Independent National Rail consumer watchdog.

The study was broken down into 4 key areas:

  • a review of the current access arrangements to all Warwickshire railway stations in order to highlight any potential barriers to access;
  • the categorisation of all Warwickshire Stations into similar types (based on size, location, passenger footfall, rail level of service etc);
  • the production of a template Station Travel Plan that can be applied to any railway station, within Warwickshire or elsewhere;
  • the application of the template Station Travel Plan to a number of stations to test that the template actually works.

Executive summary - (pdf, 88 Kb)

Station typology framework and template station travel plan - (pdf, 2.2, Mb)

National station travel plan programme - Leamington Spa station pilot

The Warwickshire County Council station travel plan study was one of the first of its kind to be completed and as such the County Council has become the national lead. As a consequence of this, Warwickshire County Council has been working closely in partnership with Department for Transport (DfT) and advising the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), Transport for London (TfL) and a number of consultancies on areas of best practice regarding station travel planning. 

As part of the DfT/ATOC programme, Leamington Spa was successfully selected as one of 24 national stations at which station travel plans would be piloted. Warwickshire County Council have worked in partnership with key stakeholders, including DfT, ATOC, Chiltern Railways, Network Rail and local businesses/user groups to produce a station travel plan. We are now working to deliver the package of improvements, identified within the Leamington Spa station travel plan, by the ends of March 2011.

Leamington Spa station travel plan (msword, 156Kb)

ATOC Station Travel Plans - further information on the Leamington Spa pilot