Travel plan targets, monitoring and the obligations behind them

A travel plan secured by a section 106 obligation is a contract, not a document. It commits you to survey your own occupiers at defined intervals, measure the result against a numerical target, and spend money on remedial measures if the target is missed. That is a liability running five years past practical completion, and it is routinely signed off by developers who read the transport chapter and skipped the schedule.

The three clauses that decide what it costs you are the target definition, the survey methodology and the remedial measures list. Get those right at drafting stage and the plan is manageable. Leave any of them open and you have an obligation whose cost nobody can estimate.

What a travel plan has to commit to

The structure an authority expects is consistent: objectives, a baseline, targets expressed numerically, a package of measures, a monitoring regime, a named person responsible, remedial measures if targets are missed, and the funding to pay for all of it.

What makes it enforceable is that each element is defined. An obligation to implement "such measures as may be agreed with the council" is unenforceable in any useful sense and, worse, exposes you to whatever the authority asks for in year three. Define the menu now.

Obligations also have to pass the statutory tests in the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010: necessary to make the development acceptable, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind. A travel plan target that depends on something outside your control, such as the frequency of a bus service you do not operate, fails that third test and is worth resisting on exactly that basis.

Baseline surveys and target setting

The baseline is the single most consequential number in the plan, and there are two ways to set it.

The honest way is a survey of actual occupiers, carried out once occupation has reached a defined level, commonly 50 or 75 per cent, within a stated window after that trigger. Targets are then set relative to a measured starting point.

The convenient way is a predicted mode share derived from trip rate data at application stage. It is quicker and it is how most plans are written, and it carries a real risk: the prediction may be nothing like the development that gets built and let. If your plan sets a target against a predicted baseline, negotiate a provision that resets the baseline to the first monitoring survey.

Express targets in percentage points, not percentages. A target to "reduce car driver mode share by 10 per cent" is ambiguous, because 10 per cent of a 60 per cent mode share is six points, while a 10 point reduction is nearly double that. Authorities and developers have argued about this at appeal. Write "a reduction of 5 percentage points in single occupancy car driver mode share, measured against the baseline survey".

Parking occupancy is often tracked alongside mode share, and where it is, the survey method should match the one used for the original evidence base, as set out for a parking survey.

Monitoring periods and survey methods

The response rate clause is the one most often missing and the one that causes most trouble. A survey with a 12 per cent response rate tells nobody anything, but if the schedule is silent the authority may treat whatever came back as the result. State a minimum, and state that below it the survey is repeated rather than the target deemed missed.

Neutral month requirements matter for the same reason. Survey a residential scheme in the week after Christmas and the mode share will look excellent and mean nothing.

Remedial measures and the clauses behind them

A remedial measures clause should name the measures, cost them, and say how many are triggered by what size of shortfall.

A workable list for a residential scheme includes additional personalised travel planning, a further round of sustainable travel vouchers, extended car club membership, additional cycle parking, improved wayfinding and signage, a contribution to a specific local walking or cycling improvement, and a repeat survey. For a commercial scheme add car share matching, shower and locker provision, and a review of parking management.

Tie the trigger to the size of the shortfall. Missing a 5 point target by half a point should not trigger the same response as missing it by four points. A tiered clause is defensible and much easier to live with than an all-or-nothing one.

Car club provision deserves particular attention, because it is a measure authorities ask for frequently and one whose long term viability depends on things the developer cannot control, a tension explored in securing car club bays and keeping them viable.

The travel plan coordinator role

The obligation will require a named coordinator, with contact details supplied to the authority before first occupation, a stated time allocation, and a term of usually five years.

Decide early who this is. On a residential scheme it ends up with the management company, which means the role and its cost have to be written into the management company's remit and the service charge from the outset. Retrofitting it after the first conveyances is awkward. On a commercial scheme it is normally a facilities management duty.

The coordinator's practical job is distributing welcome packs, maintaining the information, running or commissioning the surveys, reporting to the authority and attending any review meeting the obligation requires. It is a few days a year, not a full role, but it is a real cost for five years.

Bonds and monitoring fees

Two money clauses sit behind the plan.

A monitoring fee covers the authority's cost of reviewing the reports, usually charged per survey round or annually. It is normally modest and not worth arguing about.

A travel plan bond is different. Authorities ask for a surety, held for the monitoring period and drawn on if remedial measures are not implemented, and the sum is sometimes calculated from the full remedial measures menu as though every measure would be needed. Negotiate the sum down to a realistic tier, and negotiate staged release: a proportion released after each monitoring round in which targets are met or remedial measures are delivered. A bond held in full for five years is a financing cost on your balance sheet throughout.

Illustrative example, not a real scheme: a 220 dwelling development with a framework travel plan, a baseline survey at 75 per cent occupation, a 5 percentage point reduction target in single occupancy car driver mode share, monitoring in years 1, 3 and 5 in neutral months with a 40 per cent minimum response rate, a tiered remedial measures list of six named items, a coordinator role written into the management company remit, and a bond released in three tranches. The year 1 survey returns a 31 per cent response rate, so it is repeated in the following neutral month rather than being treated as a failure. That single clause saved a remedial measures round.

Framework plans for phased schemes

On a phased or multi-occupier development, the usual structure is a site-wide framework plan secured at the outset, with individual plans for each phase or occupier submitted for approval before that part is occupied.

Three things need care. The framework has to set the targets, or each occupier will propose its own. The monitoring has to be aggregated at site level as well as reported individually, or nobody can tell whether the development as a whole is performing. And the obligation has to say who holds the bond and the coordinator role when the site is in multiple ownership, because the answer is rarely obvious once plots are sold.

For larger applications, note that Active Travel England is a statutory consultee on major development above stated thresholds, so the walking and cycling content of the plan will be read by someone other than the local highway authority. Check the current thresholds before assuming your scheme is below them.

The plan itself should be prepared alongside the transport assessment rather than bolted on afterwards, so the mode share assumptions in the assessment and the targets in the travel plan are the same numbers.

But read the schedule before you sign it. The transport chapter is advocacy. The schedule is the bill.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. Councils usually expect a suitably qualified transport planner to prepare these documents, so professional review is strongly advised.

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