2 The Travel Planning Process
2.1 Introduction
The toolkit is intended to provide a consistent framework for completing Travel Plans in Greater Manchester. It will provide a new approach to the Travel Planning process that allows documents to be written and reviewed through a single online system. This section outlines how this new process will work, and who is responsible for maintaining it.
2.2 Types of Travel Plan
Travel Plans are typically completed for individual sites that are likely to generate traffic. These include:
- Workplace Travel Plans for employment sites and commuting traffic
- Residential Travel Plans for housing sites and all types of traffic
- School Travel Plans for education sites and school-run traffic
- Station Travel Plans for tram stops and/or train stations
The toolkit primarily caters towards Workplace Travel Plans, as these generate the greatest proportion of traffic across the Greater Manchester area. Other types of Travel Plan should still be referred directly to the local authority.
2.3 Workplace Travel Plans
Workplace Travel Plans typically outline a strategy for managing the number of people who drive to work on their own, thus cutting down on the number of vehicles on the road network around the site and reducing its overall impact.
A Workplace Travel Plan can be submitted at any time, including:
- Before a planning application while the feasibility of the site is still being explored
- During a planning application while other planning documentation (eg transport assessment) is being prepared
- Following occupation of a site to cater towards existing staff commuting patterns
The toolkit primarily caters towards Travel Plans being compiled before or during a planning application as part of the statutory planning process, although it does provide reference and guidance to those completing a Travel Plan following occupation of a site.
2.4 Travel Planning for New Developments
As part of the statutory planning process, Travel Plans are typically reviewed and approved by planning officers within the local authority responsible for processing planning applications in their area. These approved Travel Plans are then made public through the planning authority’s website or the Planning Portal.
The toolkit is designed to mirror this process and manage the production and review of Travel Plans between applicants and the planning authority.
This process is summarised overleaf. It splits the process into pre-occupation and post-occupation stages and illustrates the step-by-step procedure for completing a Travel Plan. Each step is ordered into columns that represent actions taken by the Travel Plan applicant, planning authority or site occupier. The role of the toolkit at each stage of this process is outlined in the coloured boxes on the right.
The rest of this document will detail how the toolkit fulfils its role at each stage of the process.
