Travel plan coordinators and who prepares the plan

The travel plan coordinator role is a named job held by a real person, and on most consented schemes it is secured by a condition or a planning obligation with a date attached. That means an occupier who has never heard of it can find, three weeks before opening, that someone has to be appointed, that a baseline survey has to be carried out and that a report is due to the council within a defined period.

Better to know at the application stage. The travel plan is the one document in the transport package that creates continuing obligations for whoever occupies the building, rather than a one-off submission that is filed after determination.

What a travel plan commits the occupier to

A travel plan is a set of measures to influence how people get to and from a site, with targets, monitoring and a mechanism for doing more if the targets are missed. National guidance treats it as a tool for managing the transport effects of development, and it is normally required where a scheme generates enough trips to matter.

The commitments fall into four groups. Physical measures, such as cycle parking, showers, lockers and a car club bay. Information and promotion, including welcome packs, a site travel page and route maps. Financial incentives, such as season ticket loans, a subsidised bus service contribution or a discount scheme. And management, which is the coordinator, the surveys, the reporting and the review cycle.

The last group is the one occupiers underestimate, because it is a staff time commitment for the life of the plan rather than a capital cost at fit-out.

Author competence and what officers expect

The plan itself should be written by someone who does transport planning for a living. Highway authorities read a lot of travel plans and can tell within two pages whether the author has done baseline surveys before.

The relevant professional route is transport planning rather than civil engineering. Membership of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation or the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, and in particular the Transport Planning Professional qualification awarded jointly by the institution and the Transport Planning Society, are the credentials officers recognise. A Travel Plan prepared by someone without survey experience tends to fail in a predictable way: plausible measures, targets picked from nowhere, and a monitoring method that cannot actually be carried out on that site.

Councils usually expect a suitably qualified author and professional review is strongly advised. The plan normally sits alongside a Transport Assessment prepared by the same team, and the two should share trip generation figures. Where the assessment predicts one mode split and the travel plan targets another, the inconsistency is the first thing a highways officer notices.

The coordinator role and how it is secured

The coordinator is usually required to be a named individual with contact details provided to the local planning authority, in post before first occupation and sometimes a stated number of months before it.

What the role actually involves:

1. Implementing the measures in the approved plan, and keeping a record of what was done and when.
2. Commissioning or carrying out the baseline survey and each monitoring survey.
3. Preparing the monitoring report and submitting it to the authority by the due date.
4. Acting as the point of contact for the authority, the highway authority and, on multi-occupier sites, the other occupiers.
5. Triggering and delivering remedial measures where targets are missed.

On a single occupier building the coordinator is often a facilities or HR manager with the role added to their duties. On a multi-occupier site it is usually the managing agent, funded through the service charge. On a residential scheme it may be the management company, and the obligation then has to survive the developer's exit.

Two practical points. Name a role rather than only a person where you can, so the obligation does not fail when an individual leaves. And check whether the obligation requires the authority to be notified of a change of coordinator, because that is a common technical breach.

Baseline and follow-up survey methods

Surveys are where travel plans succeed or fail as evidence.

A baseline survey is usually a questionnaire of staff or residents, with a minimum response rate specified so the results mean something, carried out within a defined window after occupation. Alongside it sit physical counts: car park occupancy at set times, cycle parking occupancy, and sometimes automatic traffic counts at the access.

Timing matters more than sample size. Survey in a neutral period, avoiding August, the fortnight around Christmas, half terms and local school holidays, because a car park count in the last week of July tells you nothing about term-time conditions. The same principle applies to a Parking Survey used to justify a reduced provision.

Keep the method identical between the baseline and each follow-up. Changing the question wording, the survey window or the counting method between rounds makes the comparison worthless, and an authority is entitled to reject a monitoring report on that basis. Record the method in enough detail that a different person can repeat it in three years.

The question of how long a survey result stays usable applies here as it does elsewhere, and the note on checking whether a survey is still valid sets out the principles.

Targets, monitoring and remedial measures

Targets are normally expressed as mode share, either a percentage reduction in single occupancy car driving or an increase in walking, cycling and public transport use, measured against the baseline.

Set them so they can be measured with the method you have proposed. A target expressed in vehicle trips needs traffic counts. A target expressed in mode share needs a survey with an adequate response rate. A target expressed as a carbon figure needs an agreed conversion method, and authorities rarely want that argument.

Monitoring usually runs on a defined cycle, commonly in the first year after occupation and then at intervals over five years. A monitoring fee is often payable to the authority and secured through the obligation, and on larger schemes a sum may be held or bonded and drawn on if targets are missed.

Remedial measures deserve careful drafting. A clause requiring the occupier to agree further measures with the authority if targets are missed is open-ended. A clause listing a menu of additional measures, with an indicative cost ceiling and a timetable, is manageable. Negotiate that at the obligation stage, because the point at which targets are missed is the worst moment to be negotiating.

Remember that obligations have to satisfy the statutory tests in the levy Regulations: necessary to make the development acceptable, directly related to it, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind. A disproportionate monitoring package can be resisted on that basis.

Framework plans against full plans

On outline permissions and multi-phase or multi-occupier schemes, a framework travel plan sets the structure, the targets and the monitoring obligations, and each occupier then produces a full plan within it.

The framework should fix what must not vary: the target basis, the survey method, the reporting format, the coordinator requirement and the review cycle. It should leave to the occupier the measures that depend on what the business actually does, since a call centre and a warehouse need different interventions.

Interim plans have a role too. Where occupation happens before travel patterns exist, an interim plan sets out the measures and commits to a full plan once the baseline survey has been done, usually within six to twelve months of occupation.

Appointing the coordinator before occupation

The sequence that avoids a breach: identify the role during the fit-out programme, appoint and name the coordinator, notify the authority, carry out the baseline survey in the window the plan specifies, and submit the first monitoring report on time.

Put the dates in the same programme as the building work. A condition requiring a coordinator to be in post before first occupation is a pre-occupation condition like any other, and occupying in breach of it is a breach of planning control.

The reviewers who can check a travel plan or a monitoring report before it goes in are the kind of transport professionals listed in the professional directory. For the statutory language behind competence requirements more generally, see the note on what competent person means in planning legislation.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority, the highway authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.