At Travelknowhow Scotland, we’re passionate about helping organisations throughout the country to understand and measure their employee’s commuting patterns, support healthier lifestyles, and improve local air quality through smarter travel choices.
One of the most effective ways to do this is through a Workplace Travel Plan. But what exactly is this?
A Blueprint for Greener Travel
A Workplace Travel Plan is a strategic document that sets out how an organisation will encourage and enable its employees and visitors to travel to and from the workplace in more sustainable ways.
At its core, the plan is about reducing single-occupancy car use and promoting travel options that are better for the environment and for people’s health.
Why Does Your Workplace Need One?
There are plenty of reasons to put a travel plan in place:
Environmental Impact: Transport is one of the largest sources of carbon emissions in Scotland. Reducing car use helps organisations meet sustainability targets and contribute to national climate goals.
Health and Wellbeing: Encouraging walking and cycling supports employee health, reduces stress, and can lead to improved productivity and job satisfaction.
Cost Savings: Both employers and employees can save money – less fuel, fewer parking spaces required, and lower travel expenses.
Accessibility and Inclusion: Offering a range of travel options helps ensure that everyone, regardless of income or ability to drive, can access the workplace.
Corporate Social Responsibility: A visible commitment to sustainability can enhance your organisation’s reputation and attract eco-conscious talent and clients.
What Does a Travel Plan Involve?
A good travel plan is data – lead and tailored to the specific needs and context of your organisation. It typically includes:
Assessment of Current Travel Habits: Understanding how people currently get to and from work.
Identification of Barriers and Opportunities: For example, lack of bike storage or infrequent bus services.
Clear Objectives and Targets: Such as increasing the number of employees cycling to work by 20% in two years.
Actions and Interventions: These might include improved cycling facilities, season ticket loans, cycle-to-work schemes, car share platforms, or awareness campaigns.
Monitoring and Evaluation: Regularly reviewing progress and making adjustments as needed.
Support from Travelknowhow Scotland
You don’t have to do it alone. At Travelknowhow Scotland, we offer FREE access to tools, resources, and consultancy to help you develop and implement a Workplace Travel Plan that works for your organisation. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refresh an existing plan, we’re here to help.
Throughout 2025/26, we are partnering with CalCommuter to deliver a data-driven approach to the development of workplace travel plans
CalCommuter is an intelligent staff commute survey platform which automatically works out the costs, duration and emissions of an employee’s current commute and any viable alternative commutes. It has been designed to take away the pain, and maximise the benefits, of doing an annual staff travel survey: both for the employees completing it, and the organisations administering it.
Benefits to your employees:
- It’s a very short survey – taking less than 2 minutes to complete on average
- It has an outcome: each employee receives a personalised commute plan to their email inbox which has worked out the cost, duration and emissions of all their viable commute options
Benefits to you as an employer:
- Automatic calculation of your scope 3 carbon emissions figures for employee commuting and homeworking for public bodies reporting/ sustainability reporting requirements.
- Easy analysis of current commuting patterns for employees to worksite.
- Ready-made mailing lists of those employees with viable alternative travel modes who have opted in to further contact to allow for target communications to nudge travel behaviour change moving forward.
- Start to build evidence on commuting patterns and potential demand (for example with public transport provision)
Ready to take the first step?
Together, we can make sustainable and active travel the easy choice for everyone at your workplace.
Please contact us at info@travelknowhowscotland.co.uk to register for our FREE consultancy and learn more about the support available in your region.
